Written answers

Wednesday, 4 November 2015

Department of Justice and Equality

Departmental Staff Data

Photo of Ruth CoppingerRuth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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132. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the percentage of staff in her Department capable of dealing with the public in the Irish language; if there are training programmes in place for staff to improve their level of working Irish; the provision there is for other minority languages; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38628/15]

Photo of Frances FitzgeraldFrances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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My Department has over 47 members of staff, almost 3% of the staff cohort, on a panel of officials who are available to do work through Irish and can deal with queries in Irish from members of the public. The Department also has a full-time Irish translator, who is principally engaged in the translation of Rules of Court to Irish.

Since 2006, with the commencement of its inaugural Irish Language Scheme, the Department of Justice and Equality has run 23 in-house Irish courses, both written and oral, tailored for members of staff. These courses were run, concurrently in some cases, by Gaeleagras, Gaelchultúrand the Institute of Public Administration, in the Department’s offices in both Dublin and Killarney. In addition, the Department has supported members of staff who wished to do Irish courses outside of the Department, and officials who participated in an on-line written Irish course, and continues to support staff who wish to do Irish courses. One official of the Department has gone on to do a Master’s Degree in Irish while another, who had attended a number of the in-house courses, has gone on to do a B.A. Degree in Irish.

During Irish Language Week each year, for the past number of years, the Department has held an event to foster the use of the language within the Department, all of which events have been very well attended.

In respect of other languages, where the resource to communicate through a language is not available internally, my Department outsources translation services.

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