Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Question 591: To ask the Minister for Education and Science 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. [43411/09]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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The total cost incurred by my Department in respect of translating state documents was approximately €156,000 in 2008 and €118,000 to date in 2009. While these figures include the cost of translating documents into languages other than Irish, the cost element in respect of non-Irish translations is not significant.

In order to reduce printing and distribution costs my Department adopted a corporate policy during 2008 requiring publications to be web based and documents are printed only in exceptional circumstances. The total cost of printing official documents was €908,346 in 2008 and is €266,386 to date in 2009.

My Department does not record the cost of printing documents which have been translated into Irish. Where an official publication is translated into Irish and requires hard copy distribution, it is usually printed as part of a single bilingual document and my Department is not in a position to quantify the element of the overall printing cost which was attributable to the inclusion of the Irish language text. The documents translated into Irish in 2008 and 2009 include a wide range of document types ranging from forms, circulars, questionnaires, and school inspection reports to official publications. Where it is necessary to have hard copies of these documents they are printed within my Department if possible or are forwarded to professional printers. The number of documents which are sent for printing outside my Department has steadily declined since the introduction of my Department's policy of using web based publishing wherever possible.