Mr. Brian Killoran:

Our experience of this is as a service provider that scrambles around for interpretation as well. We are not necessarily experts on the international best practice around interpretation but I am aware of instances. For example, a lot of the domestic violence services in Ireland use telephone-based helpline services in the UK and part of that is because they are better regulated. To what extent they are better regulated I cannot say offhand. To get over the issue of somebody, potentially, from the community knowing a family, the circumstances or knowing the individual from attending a mosque or wherever that may be, services are used that are located outside of Ireland.

The competent authorities such as the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the Department of Justice and the Department of Education, through things like the migrant integration strategy, need to empower officials and perhaps civil society to look at this matter. Part of looking at the issue is considering international best practice. I think we are very much behind the curve in Ireland in terms of the thinking on this matter. Organisations like ourselves must firefight and struggle with this matter as much as everybody else, and are not necessarily able to suggest solutions right now.

Part of planning for and investing in migration in Ireland is looking outside ourselves at countries that have longer immigration histories than Ireland, and have gone through these issues maybe 20 years ago and developed best practice. It might be as close as the UK when it comes to things like interpretation. While that will not be perfect, it will definitely be more advanced than what we do here. The migrant integration strategy is an opportunity to do things like interpretation services properly. I mean we can get a bit of best practice and tailor the approach in Ireland.