Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 5 March 2014
92. Deputy John Deasy asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide a breakdown of her Department's expenditure on translating and printing Irish language publications, documents, advertisements, notices and bilingual signage in each of the past three years. [11055/14]
View answerIt is an objective of my Department to provide a quality customer service in both Irish and English in response to customer demand. The Department provides a service through Irish in line with the requirements of the Official Languages Act, 2003. The Department has an official language scheme in place, the purpose of which is to ensure better availability and a higher standard of public services through Irish.
It is not possible to completely isolate all of the costs for the provision of services in the Irish language within the total cost of service provision in every instance. The cost of providing some elements of service through the Irish language can be identified. These include the translation of forms, leaflets and other documentation, and expenditure on advertising in the Irish language. The data in the following table show expenditure in relation to these areas in each of the years 2011, 2012, 2013 and to date in 2014.
|
IRISH LANGUAGE COSTS |
2011 € |
2012 € |
2013 € |
to date 2014 € |
|
Translations |
83,055 |
45,989 |
33,700 |
6,807 |
|
Advertising (in Irish and bilingually) |
3,200 |
5,723 |
3,380 |
1,461 |
|
Total |
86,255 |
51,712 |
37,080 |
8,268 |
