Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:
“A fortnight ago the Communities Minister gave a statement in the Assembly in which she reported on a meeting of the British-Irish Council at which regional and minority languages were discussed. There was a particular focus on a paper dealing with language acquisition in early years.
“The minister advised that she had shared this paper with the Executive and went on to enthuse about it at length. When MLAs were given a chance to question the Minister I asked the obvious ones – where can one acquire the paper? Does it go beyond indigenous minority languages? Does it say anything about the learning of French, German or Spanish? The Minister responded saying she would be happy to share the paper if she was able to.
“Now I have received a letter from the Minister advising me that “the paper was never intended to be shared widely or published”, it could only be made public if there was agreement from all the Ministers and that this was not the case in this instance.
“Why is this paper being hidden? A basic level of transparency would surely mean that the document should be public, particularly when one considers how keen the minister was to play up its importance.”