John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Question 314: To ask the Minister for Social Protection if he will provide details of the total expenditure by her Department on providing services through the Irish language in each of the past five years. [31634/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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It is an objective of my Department to provide a quality customer service in both Irish and English in response to customer demand. It is not possible to completely isolate all of the costs for the provision of services in the Irish language within the total cost of service provision in every instance.

The cost of providing some elements of service through the Irish language can be identified. These include the provision of staff training in spoken and written Irish, the translation of forms, leaflets and other documentation, and expenditure on advertising in the Irish language. The data in the following tables shows expenditure in relation to these areas in each of years 2007 to 2011.