Chamber and committees

Convener, do you want me to move on to questions about the role of Bòrd na Gàidhlig?

Has there been a tension between the supportive development work that the bòrd does and holding public bodies to account?

As well as there being a tension, I suppose that there is also an opportunity to build things if you have relationships. Power or getting stuff done is not always about compelling people to do things.

I do. I do not want to go over the top of Willie Rennie’s summarising of the situation, but I want to go back a little. My question is for Donald Macleod in particular. I am more interested in what an area of linguistic significance would look like to somebody who lived there, rather than to a visitor. As a Gaelic speaker in one of your villages or in town, would I expect the right for my child to do all their secondary school subjects through the medium of Gaelic? Would my grandparent in a home have a care assistant who spoke Gaelic when caring for her?

Of course, the bill cannot address some of those challenges in and of itself, but I want to get a sense of whether the community should decide, rather than the local authority. Your local authority is in the heartlands, but other local authorities—for example, Highland Council—cover a greater area. Should the community itself decide? As a resident of your area, what could I expect?

In addition, what is preventing those things from happening now? Some challenges, such as recruitment and housing, are universal; they are faced in many rural areas.

I am sorry; I have trodden on a fellow member’s question. I will leave it there.

Let me pause you for a wee second. Would you assert that, if Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s funding had increased, we would have stronger Gaelic and that there would be more Gaelic speakers in the community? My initial question was about Gaelic as a whole, rather than the bòrd specifically, although I appreciate that that is where you are coming from.

Ealasaid said that the money from Bòrd na Gàidhlig goes straight into communities. Can you give me a flavour of what sorts of things it is used for?

I have a supplementary question to some of Willie Rennie’s questions about areas of linguistic significance. Ealasaid Dhòmhnallach, your personal reflections are helpful for the committee’s understanding. Last weekend, I was in Skye and the family spoke nothing but Gaelic. An interesting question is: where, in your day-to-day work and life in Lewis, do you need to speak English?

I will continue with the theme of outcomes. I am sometimes struck that, in this place, we almost talk in a different language when we talk about performance frameworks and so on. Should we hear from communities about what success would look like? Iain Macmillan, you said, in essence, that it is just part of you—that you just speak Gaelic. Perhaps we need to know from folk what the blockers are, where they come up against issues, where things grate or where they feel that they are not able to use their language fully or that it is not being given respect? I know that those things are not always easy to measure, if we just ask people in normal language, but it might be valuable to do that.

That is interesting.

I also ask Donald Macleod for Comhairle nan Eilean Siar’s response to the statement that Gaelic is in crisis.