Campaign stepped up for bilingual destination screens on Derry buses

Sinn Féin Councillor Kevin Campbell has met with senior senior management of Translink in Derry to push forward his campaign for the company to introduce a pilot scheme of using bilingual destination screens on a number of bus routes in the city and to adopt bilingual bus signs in both English and Irish. Cllr Campbell (pictured) described the meeting as “very positive.”

He said: “I raised this issue back in February and felt it was very important to keep this on the agenda so it was the purpose of today’s meeting to move this to the next stage.

“It was a very positive meeting so hopefully thing are going in the right direction.

“I believe this is doable and is achievable at very little cost.

“Translink bus services operating in West Belfast have been featuring both English and Irish language signs on destinations screens since 2011. And there has been bilingual passenger information on bus shelter timetables and route information.

“There are hundreds of children going to schools in the city learning through the medium of Irish and hundreds of people of all ages attending night classes and hundreds taking part in cultural musical and sporting activities. This was magnified tenfold when Derry hosted the Fleadh in 2013.”

Cllr Campbell concluded: “To have bus services using bilingual signage on a number of routes would i believe a very positive and progressive move for the city.”