Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 23 May 2013
166. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae asked the Minister for Justice and Equality if he will provide in tabular form the cost to the State in the years 2010 to 2011, 2011 to 2012 and 2012 to 2013 of the provision of Romanian interpreters to the Courts Service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24931/13]
View answerThe Deputy will be aware that, under the provisions of the Courts Service Act 1998, management of the courts is the responsibility of the Courts Service and I have no role in the matter. Section 4(3) of the 1998 Act provides that the Courts Service is independent in the performance of its functions, which includes the provision of statistics. However, in order to be of assistance to the Deputy, I have had enquiries made and the Courts Service has informed me that interpretation services for the courts are provided by an external service provider under contract and the statistics are not maintained in the manner sought by the Deputy.
The tables below set out the percentage of the total number of bookings that were in respect of Romanian language interpreters. It should be noted that the cost of each booking varies according to the length of time in court which is largely dependent on the seriousness of the charge. Table 2 sets out the total expenditure for each year on interpretation for the courts. It should be carefully noted the data below is not interrelated as it does not follow that a percentage of bookings equates to an equivalent percentage of overall expenditure.
Table 1
|
- |
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 (Jan -Apr) |
|
% of bookings for Romanian language interpreters |
14.8% |
17.5% |
17.5% |
18.60% |
Table 2
|
- |
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 (Jan -Apr) |
|
Total Annual Cost |
€2,319,788.52 |
€1,703,888.65 |
1,560,316.85 |
€478,717.10 |
