Mr. Joe O'Brien:

The report did not dig into that. The 35 cases did not show any particular pattern. There were five cases where interpreters should have been called upon but were not. There was one case where somebody asked for an interpreter but was refused. We had a team meeting in my organisation this morning and someone wrote to request an interpreter but one was not provided.

The FOI figures we got on interpreter usage did not dig down in terms of where they were being used or not being used and perhaps that needs to be explored further. Our own take on it would be that the interpreter service costs money and choices are made in that context. We feel, however, that a lot of people who have the right to access the system are not being given a fair hearing because they need an interpreter in order to access their rights.