Annwyl Rhodri Glyn Thomas (Minister for Heritage),I write on behalf of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg to express our members’ disappointment that the Assembly Government has broken its promise to establish a Welsh language daily newspaper. I don’t question your personal commitment to the concept, but I must question some apparent contradictions in the government’s policies. The promise to establish a Welsh language daily newspaper is very clear in the One Wales agreement: “We will expand the funding and support for Welsh-medium magazines and newspapers, including the establishment of a Welsh-language daily newspaper.”Online Petition - http://deiseb.cymdeithas.org

We must emphasise that the finance announced by you will not be enough to establish such a newspaper. According to Dyddiol Cyf’s thorough and professional research, it is not possible to establish such a newspaper without at least £600,000 of annual aid, and all political parties knew these figures before they drew up their manifestoes for the May 2007 election, and before Plaid Cymru and the Labour party committed themselves to the One Wales Agreement. The company has now announced, since your statement, that they will not be able to proceed with the enterprise of establishing a credible daily newspaper, and that it is highly unlikely that anybody else will be able to do so either.Tony Bianchi’s report confirms this, saying that it will not be possible for any company to establish a daily newspaper without such a sum of money. £200,000 to be shared between all aspects of the Welsh language printed press is therefore clearly not enough, and the experience of daily newspapers in other minority languages proves this. For example the Basque newspaper Berria, which receives aid of over £1.2 million a year from the Basque Government is thriving; while it has recently been anounced that the Gaelic paper La Nua in Northern Ireland, which receives a grant of £200,000 only a year from the Government, will close by the end of the month because of financial difficulties.We believe that the government has broken their promise to establish a Welsh language daily newspaper and this U turn has greatly saddened members of Cymdeithas yr Iaith. Further, we believe that Welsh people’s faith in the coalition and in its ability to keep to its promises has been shaken. The conditions and timing to establish a Welsh language daily newspaper are as good now as they are ever likely to be, since Dyddiol Cyf has undertaken such effective research and marketing, and since we have such a good understanding of the printed press as a result of Tony Bianchi’s report.We call on you as minister to ensure that the government honours its clear promise to establish a Welsh language daily newspaper announced in One Wales, and we ask for a new statement from the government that sufficient funds will be set aside specifically to establish a national daily newspaper in the Welsh language. Nothing less will do!We have launched an on-line petition to this end - http://deiseb.cymdeithas.orgYn Gywir,Hywel GriffithsCymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg – Welsh Language Society Chair