http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Gaeli ... 6334741.jp
The usal bigoted, ignorant comments below, with a few noble exceptions, till you get to our Arthur - I never fail to be impressed at how he keeps his temper and his wits about him, and posts sensible, transparent and persuasive arguments in the face of distinctly racist abuse.
E.g.
Arthur Cormack,
Portree 03/06/2010 00:12:57
Gaelic speakers pay taxes too - including council tax in Edinburgh and why should they not have some of their money spent on their language?
I don't moan about paying for the trams in Edinburgh that I may never use, or for the National Galleries and Museums that I rarely get to visit.
Tolls were 40p on the Forth Bridge at the same time as those on the Skye Bridge were £5.70. I had to pay extortionate tolls for 9 years while a similar amount of taxpayers' money to that spent building the Skye Bridge was spent fixing the Kingston Bridge in Glasgow, from which I get little benefit.
My taxes are spent on many things I don't particularly care for but I accept that we live in a country where we live and let live, and accept that money has to go around and provide services for all. I don't see why spending on Gaelic is singled out as something unusual in that context.
Teachers, translators editors and writers in Gaelic all pay taxes too. If they didn't have jobs they would not pay taxes and would probably cost the country more than might currently be spent on them. No good road signs have been pulled down to be replaced with bilingual ones. The policy is to replace them when they need replaced anyway.
There is only one quango serving Gaelic's needs and it is in 29th place (in terms of budget) out of 35 Executive Quangos in Scotland, with a budget of £5.5m. Almost every other quango in Scotland gets a greater allocation than it does.
Quangos in Scotland spend 10 times Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s budget on tourism; 9 times its budget on sport; 11.5 times its budget on natural heritage; 4 times as much on the national library; nearly 7 times as much on the national museums; and almost 5 times as much on galleries. Scotland’s two National Parks get more money than the Bòrd, as does the Crofters Commission. Legal Aid costs 30 times as much as Gaelic, and training 37 times as much!