On 19th October 2016, The Seanad accepted the ‘Irish Sign Language for the Deaf Community Bill’, proposed by Senator Mark Daly, at the second stage of process. The result has been welcomed by the Deaf community and the Irish Deaf Society (IDS) who have been campaigning for Irish Sign Language (ISL) and Deaf rights issues for the last 30 years. The Bill will now continue to the third stage, known as Committee Stage, of a 5-stage process before continuing over to the Dail.
Minister of State with special responsibility for disabilities, Finian McGrath stated that he was “happy that the bill will now move on to complete the pre-legislative scrutiny process and then, in due course and, in light of the assessment by the Oireachtas of the bill’s proposals, that we can work together to see what amendments are needed to create the focused right to interpretation I am thinking of.”
The news comes after the publication of a report on the Formal Recognition of ISL by the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality last week that proposed that legislation be prioritised and enacted as soon as possible. The Committee cited the experience of the Irish Deaf community in their proposal as “one of extreme marginalisation due to the lack of sign language recognition and provision.” The report outlined how access to services including the education system, the health service, the courts system and the national parliament itself amounted to “unacceptable systemic exclusion that must be addressed urgently.”
The Bill aims to ensure access for Deaf people to public services and information, promoting greater inclusion and participation for Deaf citizens, and for registration and regulation of ISL interpreting services which will ensure quality control and protection. Ireland remains one of the last few countries in the EU to have not yet recognised their native sign language, despite signing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and recommendations to do so in an EU Parliamentary resolutions in 1988 and 1998 and the 2010 Brussels Declaration on Sign Languages in the EU.
The recent story of two Deaf brothers – William and Daniel McCarthy found dead at their home in Bluebell highlighted the ways in which Deaf people face exclusion and marginalisation within the community, and stressed the importance of access to ISL for essential public services and information. While it is rather sad to have something tragic triggered off an interest in the ISL Recognition Bill, this issue should have done with a while ago but having said that, the Irish Deaf community owes a huge debt of gratitude to the McCarthy brothers. We are determined not to let their deaths in vain and this catalyst will be a memorial to the State’s final move to recognise the ISL.