The decision by the Department of Education and Science to withdraw funding from Colaiste an Phiarsaigh, the Irish language summer college in Gaoth Dobhair, could cost the area up to E1.5m in lost revenue.

According to the Department, the withdrawal of recognition is due to the “College authorities’ failure to comply fully with the criteria attaching to the granting of recognition in 2006 where the Department identified management deficiencies”.

Deposits have been refunded to prospective students. And now shops and hotel businesses, which would normally be catering for several hundred visitors every day for nine weeks during the summer months, are worried about the major financial implications of such a decision.
“No area, least of all Gaoth Dobhair, could afford such a financial body blow”, SF Cllr Pearse Doherty told the Donegal Post. It would also have a negative impact on the Irish language and the Donegal Gaeltacht region.

Mna Ti are now left with no income and their future financial welfare is under grave threat, he warned.

Some of them had conducted house modifications to cater for students in recent months and will find themselves without any future income and businesses such as hotels and shops will loose costumers as a result of this decision.

Cllr. Doherty further claimed that the Department of Education had taken far too long to make this decision. The situation in Donegal is bad enough as it is with the current unemployment situation withoutinvolving the Mna Ti, he said.

Although Eamon O Cuiv, the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, has announced that the grant to Gaeltacht households, who accommodate Irish Language learners, has been increased from E9.50 to E10.50 per day, this will have very little effect in Gweedore with the current situation, he further warned.