Mr. Peter Finnegan:

We would be very happy to look at the badge issue. I think it would be helpful to people if we had that type of system in place. We will take the Senator's proposal away and examine it.

It is well known at this stage that there is a backlog in Rannóg an Aistriúcháin for a number of reasons. It dates back to 1992, when there were issues with resources. The requirement in the Official Languages Act for the simultaneous production of legislation put further pressure on the rannóg. It is something we have to get on top of as an organisation. At the moment, we have a capacity review which is taking place. We have commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers to come in and look at Rannóg an Aistriúcháin. The review has two parts: there is a cultural aspect to the operation of the rannóg and then there is a capacity aspect. The capacity aspect deals with a number of separate issues. Essentially, it involves looking at the capacity of the rannóg to perform its statutory functions and all of the other functions for which it is responsible within the Houses of the Oireachtas service. That entails looking at the overall number of staff, the systems that are used to translate legislation and the use of technology. We are currently introducing a new state-of-the-art translation system, Trados, which is used in the European Parliament. That will help us considerably. Other models are also being looked at to determine whether some non-core translation work should be outsourced. For example, we had a positive experience when we outsourced the translation of the website. A considerable amount of text - I think I said earlier that 250,000 words have been translated - has been translated using an outsourced model. We are waiting on the PricewaterhouseCoopers report, which is due to be delivered at the end of February. At that stage, we will have to go through the recommendations and put the required resources in place. I envisage that there will be fairly significant changes in how the organisation functions. We have to get on top of the backlog. It is not sustainable to continue as we are.