Legalise Our Irish Sign Language

In the words of Senator Mark Daly " we are in breach of international agreements which we have signed up to, not only the international convention on disabilities, but the Good Friday Agreement; …the deaf community … are not given the same level of service, the same access to government services as any other citizen is entitled to under the Good Friday Agreement; the Irish Language and the Ulster Scot were recognized as official languages as was Irish Sign Language, and we agreed with the British government that all these languages would get official recognition in the North and obviously in the South – but amazingly enough while Irish Language is recognized in the North of Ireland and has been implemented there – the policy on the ground has been put in place – down here, in the South, there is actually no implementation of the Good Friday Agreement fifteen years on from its signing; … this is a fundamental breach of International Law – to sign up to an International Agreement in good faith and to then turn around and blatantly ignore its own provisions is a disgraceful act by any government, but when you consider the effect, and… modern technology, some of which wasn’t even available when the Good Friday Agreement was in place… now you have on-line interpreters, and imagine how difficult it is for a member of the deaf community to go to the doctor’s surgery and explain to a doctor how they are feeling and … their sickness; obviously something like that… lost in translation…can have a detrimental effect on the outcome of the prognosis…”