Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Question 350: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the cost of translating all State documents into Irish; the cost of printing same; if a proposal for storing these electronically and printing as required has been investigated; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43417/09]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The costs of translating documents into Irish are met from my Department's Administrative Budget and unfortunately cannot readily be distinguished from the cost of providing administrative services generally. Accordingly the information sought by the Deputy could not be compiled without the application of a disproportionate amount of staff time and resources.

However, I can inform the Deputy that in order to meet public information obligations in relation to official publications, be they in English or Irish, it is my Department's policy to issue CDs or to use other IT based publication tools such as PDF formats. This policy also covers the publishing of documents, such as annual reports, on my Department's website. I have taken a personal interest in this issue and consequently directed that my Department ensures that where hard copies of documents are required, they are prepared for publication by the use of in-house copying equipment. As a consequence of implementing this policy, printing and postal costs are kept to an absolute minimum. I am sure that the Deputy will appreciate the importance of this policy given that my Department's Administrative Budget for 2009 comprises only 77% of such expenditure in 2008.

I can also inform the Deputy that, in common with other categories of expenditure, my Department seeks to provide Irish language services with an eye to securing value for money. To illustrate this, the Deputy may wish to note that since February 2003 my Department has been involved in a major on-going Irish language project, the translation of the Rules of Court. To facilitate the efficient and effective completion of this project my Department has employed an in-house translator principally to oversee and carry out the translations of these Rules. In December 2004 the 1,200 page Irish translation of the District Court Rules, 1997 was published. This translation is available on the Courts Service website www.courts.ie. It is expected that the Irish translation of the Circuit Court Rules, 2001 will be published in the coming months. The translation of the forms contained in these Rules are currently before the Irish Legal Terms Advisory Committee for verification. By engaging an in-house translator instead of seeking outside service providers my Department estimates that it has made significant savings on this project.