The European Parliament treats Irish as a second class language.
That's according to the European candidate for Ireland South, which includes Kerry, Cynthia Ní Mhurchú.
She has vowed to prioritise the Irish language if elected to the European Parliament, and has called for an immediate end to the derogation exempting Irish interpretation from the parliament.
Ms Ní Mhurchú says "If we are serious about preserving … our national language … we need to start … end the sidelining of the Irish language”.
Officially, documents must be translated into all 24 official EU languages, and all EU lawmakers have the right to speak in any of the official languages.
Irish has been a fully official language of the EU since 2022, but the European parliament put a derogation in place for Irish and Maltese because of a shortage of suitable language translation staff.
This March the derogation was extended until the end of the 2029, but is reviewed every six months in case the situation has changed.
