Finian McGrath (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We want to ensure public bodies only use the services of interpreters who are competent and whose competence has been verified by accreditation under the new scheme to be put in place by the SLIS, for which funding via the CIB has been agreed. In response to the issues raised by the deaf community, the commitments to ISL in the national disability inclusion strategy have also been strengthened. In addition to providing to the extension of working hours in the ISL remote interpretation centre to evenings and weekends, the new national disability inclusion strategy, which was published on 14 July, supports the legislation to ensure all public bodies provide ISL users with free interpretation when accessing or availing of their statutory services. A new action will ensure that the sign language information service, SLIS, will be resourced to increase the number of trained sign language and deaf interpreters. A quality assurance and registration scheme for interpreters will be established and there will be ongoing professional training and development provided for interpreters.

As already announced, I have secured the funding for these actions, the details of which will be provided in 2018 and which will be worked out in dialogue with the SLIS, the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection and the Citizens Information Board. This will ensure we have sufficient and sufficiently competent interpreters available so that public bodies can meet their obligations and so that the ISL user and the public body can be confident that the interpretation service is of a high quality. It has happened in other countries that interpreters were not of a high quality and it was a complete disaster. We are well aware of what happened, for example, at the funeral of Nelson Mandela and we want to make sure this does not happen when public servicers are being provided to ISL users here.

Acceptance of this amendment has been agreed on the basis that we do not need the provision relating to the establishment of a new public body, which the Government regards as inappropriate for meeting the real needs of ISL users, or the amendments relating to establishment of a statutory register and scheme of accreditation. Amendments Nos. 32 to 39, inclusive, therefore, propose the deletion of the provisions of the Bill relating to the accreditation of interpreters. The bottom line is to make sure we have competent, credible people who provide a high quality public service.