Every effort must be made to facilitate television and radio debates in Irish in the run up to the Galway West by-election, according to Social Democrats candidate M\u00edde Nic Fhionnlaoich.<\/p>\n
M\u00edde was responding to reports that Raidi\u00f3 na Gaeltachta and TG4\u2019s Nuacht will be unable to host live debates before polling day because there are not enough Irish-speaking candidates.<\/p>\n
She said:<\/p>\n
\u201cGalway West is home to the largest Gaeltacht in the country, which is well served by two popular Irish language television and radio broadcasting services.<\/p>\n
\u201cI fully understand that the majority of candidates don\u2019t have enough Irish to participate in a live debate \u2013 and I am certainly not holding that against them. But it is important that Gaeltacht areas are treated fairly and do not lose out because of this.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should be able to discuss and debate things that are important to these communities in Irish \u2013 issues like transport, disability, healthcare, housing and the cost of living. It would be deeply regrettable if this is not possible because only a handful of candidates have sufficient levels of Irish to participate in an election debate.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, I believe that a solution can be found if parties and independent candidates agree to put forward a fluent Irish speaker to represent them in any television or radio debates.<\/p>\n
\u201cMuintir na Gaeltachta are so often left out of the narrative in this country when it comes to the important issues of the day, and sometimes even conversations about the Irish language itself. If Irish-speaking communities can\u2019t fully engage in this by-election, how can we even begin to address the existential problems faced by the Gaeltacht?\u201d<\/p>\n
March 31, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every effort must be made to facilitate television and radio debates in Irish in the run up to the Galway West by-election, according to Social Democrats candidate M\u00edde Nic Fhionnlaoich. M\u00edde was responding to reports that Raidi\u00f3 na Gaeltachta and TG4\u2019s Nuacht will be unable to host live debates before polling day because there are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16689,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[403,730,12,806,803,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaeilge","category-gaeltacht","category-galway","category-galway-west","category-mide-nic-fhionnlaoich","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n