No excuse for letting down Welsh speakers; DAILY POST YOUR VOICE IN WALES.

THE Welsh Language Act exists for a reason - it is to ensure that public bodies treat Welsh the same as English and afford those who speak the language the same opportunities to use it.

Failure to comply with the law is an offence and it is a particularly inexcusable one when the public body in question is a health trust and the patient let down is a child.

The former Conwy and Denbighshire NHS Trust failed to offer speech and language therapy or physiotherapy in Welsh to a youngster for whom Welsh is his first language.

The Welsh Language Board found that the Trust failed on nine separate occasions to apply its own language scheme.

The Trust had insufficient staff to speak Welsh to the child whose mum had to translate during appointments and group sessions.

Bosses have at least, acknowledged these failings and offered the family a full apology.

Hopefully, this will be followed up with an endeavour to ensure there are not similar problems in the future.

The language must be given a level playing field with English if it is to survive and prosper long term.

There are all too many worrying examples of this not happening, such as in schools where the teaching of Welsh as a second language has often been inadequate.

There is also reason to believe that there are many more Welsh speakers who do not receive a proper service through the medium of Welsh in the health sector.

This isn't good enough. The Welsh Language Act should not just be treated as an annoying layer of red tape to be ignored wherever possible.

The provisions laid down by the Act are all the more important where Welsh-speaking children are concerned who in their formative years, won't necessarily have a full command of English. In any case, young Welsh speakers deserve to be nurtured in the language, and to feel they have a community around them who can speak it.

The future of Welsh lies in the hands of young people. Should children abandon it, should it cease to be the language of the hearth and of the playground, Welsh will eventually die out.

The Language Act exists to help protect our linguistic heritage which ought to be precious to all of us in Wales, whether we are able to speak Welsh or not.