Dr. John Bosco Conama:

To address Deputy Daly's questions first with regard to the case of the brother and sister, the sister was not even signing. She was actually trying to lip-read somebody else, which is a slightly different issue, but an issue nonetheless.

The size of the deaf community is sometimes debated. We try to follow the international rule of thumb that there is in or about one deaf sign language user to every 1,000 of the population. If we have a population of 4.5 million people, we are talking about approximately 4,500 deaf sign language users. However, according to the census, we have 72,000 deaf or severely hearing-impaired people listed, approximately 19,000 of whom are under the age of 50. I wonder if those who are under the age of 50 are sign language users. If one breaks down the big group, approximately one quarter, or 19,000, would be right.

The way the question was asked in the census was not very clear. It asked how many people used sign language. There figure was approximately 3,500 but they were mostly hearing. I think that it is very much under-reported. If one were to compare it with Scotland or New Zealand, which have similar populations, Scotland has 12,000 British Sign Language users. These are people who use British Sign Language at home. We have 3,500. In New Zealand, there are 20,000 sign language users. There is obviously something going on in terms of the answering of that question and how it is being filled in. We are looking at there being maybe 20,000 to 50,000 people who use Irish Sign Language regularly. I hope that answers the question.

Mr. Crean has just reminded me about the question on interpretation and the number of interpreters. Off the top of my head, I would say there are approximately 60 or 70 interpreters. These would be freelance people who often leave or who get summer work and then come back and do bits and pieces. Internationally, 60 would be seen as an incredibly low number for our population. In Finland, there are 500 Finnish sign language interpreters on the register. We have 60 to 70 qualified interpreters. That is the historic number of qualified interpreters. It is not the number of people who are actively on the register as such. Mr. Crean is also saying to me that, in Finland, they would say that 500 is not enough. That is comparative to the population.