Courts body to fork out €2m on interpreters as demand rises
Monday July 02 2007
THE Courts Service will spend €2m on interpreters this year - 20 times more than it spent in 2000.
The contract for interpretation services now covers hundreds of different languages as diverse as Vietnamese, Turkish and Swahili, and the total payout has jumped from €103,000 in 2000 to €1.25m two years ago to €2m this year.
"Increased ethnic diversity has seen us provide for interpretation of the spoken word in up to 210 different languages and dialects," a spokesman for the Courts Service said yesterday.
"Until recently, this was provided from a panel of reputable agencies and companies with whom we have established links over several years.
"To ensure the quality of the system is maintained, improved and that access to the best available interpretation is achieved, the Courts Service recently went to international tender to seek bidders for a single service provider of interpretation services."
That contract was won by the Irish arm of Lionsbridge, one of the world's biggest language solutions firms.
Headquartered in Dun Laoghaire, the firm also has offices in Mayo and Galway and employs 500 people. It is now in the first year of a four-year contract with the Courts Service.
"The cost of this service will be approximately €2m per year. We have provided for a 20-fold increase in the amount invested in this service since 2000," the Courts Service confirmed.
"We pay €46 per hour for this service. The most common languages include Cantonese, Mandarin, French, Romanian, Russian and Irish.
"We also translate some of our most commonly requested information leaflets into other languages such as French, Mandarin and Cantonese."
With the new program, Lionsbridge provides onsite interpreters for court-based interpretation services, including the interpretation of sworn testimony by defendants and witnesses, submissions by lawyers and judges rulings.
These services are across the civil and criminal courts of the District, Circuit, High and Supreme Courts across the country.
The Courts service said that it is also "critical" that when a foreign national applies for asylum here, they understand their legal position and forms they might be signing.
A total of 2,185 from outside the State were sent to prison in 2005, compared with 1,804 a year earlier.
- Jason O'Brien
