7. Mr Delargy asked the First Minister and deputy First Minister to outline the timeline for the appointment of an Irish language commissioner. (AQO 546/22-27)

TEO is responsible for taking forward the necessary arrangements to implement the provisions of the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022, including the establishment of the Office of Identity and Cultural Expression, the Irish language commissioner and the commissioner for the Ulster-Scots and the Ulster-British tradition. We have given initial consideration to the appointments process and hope to make an announcement in due course regarding the necessary recruitment competitions. We will keep Members updated.

I thank the deputy First Minister for her response. It is welcome that an announcement will be made in due course on those recruitment competitions. Will the deputy First Minister detail the reason why the three bodies have not yet been established? Can she commit to setting out a more definitive timeline for the recruitment to those three bodies?

They are public appointments. They are also statutory bodies. They are brand new. Therefore, considerable work has been done on their establishment through the legislation. Because they are public appointments regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments, we have to go through a number of necessary legal steps.

There will be three different recruitment competitions, all of which will operate at the same time, with the aim of recruiting eight individuals: that is, of course, because the office of identity and cultural identity will have more than one. It is a substantial undertaking. We have considered and agreed the initial submission. We are now waiting for more details around the legalities, the contracts, the proposals, the job specs and all those different requirements that we need to look at. It is a lengthy process, but we are determined that it will proceed and proceed in a way that gets the right people for those posts.

I thank the deputy First Minister for outlining the timeline. Will she elaborate on the budget that has been set aside for this process for the 2024-25 financial year?

Public appointments processes generally take between six to 12 months, especially if they are new recruitment processes. The financial implications for that in this year's budget will come from the cost of the recruitment competition. We will not know the actual cost of the proposed offices until we look at the initial business plans for those. The business and corporate plans will come up for agreement. We have flagged it up with the Department of Finance that we currently have no budget lines to support this, but, in all likelihood, we will be in the next financial year before any expenditure will be required for the establishment of the three offices.

No business cases have been presented, but the Department must have some idea of the likely cost of those bodies. What is that estimate?

All those costs are, ultimately, scalable and dependent on how many staff there will be and on the agreement of the business and corporate plan. No body can ever do everything that it wanted to do, so it is about looking at whatever budget is available, and people being able to fit and to prioritise within that. Of course, the starting point for that will be to look at the statutory duties of each of the commissioners but also at the individual proposals that they make. It is absolutely essential that this is done on a fair and equitable basis. We look forward to seeing the plans being put forward and assessing those in accordance with the budgets that we are able to achieve for those offices, in order to ensure that they can make a meaningful and positive difference.

Declan McAleer is not in his place. I call Matthew O'Toole.