Galway Bay fm newsroom - 20% of all complaints made to the Language Commissioner last year came from Galway.
It's the highest percentage nationwide, outside of Dublin which accounted for 30% of all complaints.
604 complaints were recorded nationwide last year, a 14% reduction on 2019.
Since the pandemic began until the end of 2020, complaints were made on 86 occasions concerning activities of public bodies that pertained in one way or another to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Of the investigations carried out last year, one concerned Galway City Council.
In July 2020, a complaint was made to the Commissioner that Galway City Council had erected a very large number of signs in English only at locations throughout the city.
These signs were erected since March 2020 in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In its response to the investigation, Galway City Council accepted that it had neglected the requirement to erect signs in Irish or Irish and English and that the statutory obligation in this case had not been met.
The City Council requested that it be taken into account that this contravention occurred when the organisation was operating under unprecedented circumstances in the middle of a global health pandemic.
As a result of the investigation, the City Council identified 'unacceptable gaps… in daily communication practices' of the organisation and indicated that measures were being put in place to address these weaknesses in its operating culture.
The number of complaints received from the public this year fell 14%, from 704 to 604.
The highest number of complaints came from Dublin and almost a quarter of complaints were made by people living in Gaeltacht areas.
