Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour)
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91. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment to provide an update on the implementation of the Irish Sign Language Act 2017 (ISL) within his Department and its associated public bodies, including details of any ISL strategies that have been developed; and if no ISL strategy has been developed to date, the details of plans his Department has to address this gap in the near future. [17973/25]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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My Department understands the responsibility on all public bodies to offer services to those accessing or seeking statutory entitlements through Irish Sign Language.

Arising from the Irish Sign Language Act 2017 (ISL), my officials established procedures to be implemented where clients of my Department wish to interact through ISL. These procedures are published on my Department’s Intranet and are accessible to all business units that may require Irish Sign Language services. My Department's Customer Service Charter and Action Plan for 2025-28, recently published on my Department's website, also reinforces this commitment to providing ISL services as required. In addition, my Department encourages and promotes training in ISL to all staff members who wish to avail of it.

My Department is fully committed to making services accessible to all, including ensuring that customers who wish to conduct their business using Irish Sign Language can do so. In this regard, the National Sign Language Interpreting Service for Ireland provides customers free access to an interpreter using a live video-link.

My Department monitors the level of demand for services to be provided in Irish Sign Language on an ongoing basis and responds to those demands in a planned, coherent, and accessible way.

The Companies Registration Office (CRO), the Register of Friendly Societies (RFS) and the Register of Beneficial Ownership (RBO), the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) and the Labour Court are independent statutory offices under the aegis of my Department and operate within the Department's Equality, Diversion and Inclusion Strategy. In addition, the WRC provides Irish Sign Language interpreters, at no extra cost, to a person when availing of or seeking to access statutory entitlements and services. As much notice as possible is required in order to ensure such requests can be facilitated. There is a special facilities box on the complaint form where requests may be notified when submitting the complaint. In 2024, the WRC used the services of Irish Sign Language Interpreters on 7 occasions. The Labour Court’s policy, in line with the requirements of the Irish Sign Language Act, 2017, is to arrange ISL interpretation for participants in its hearings on request. Customers of the Intellectual Property Office of Ireland, IPOI, can access the sign language services through a website link to the Irish Remote Interpreting Service provided by the Sign Language Interpreting Service.

Implementation of the Irish Sign Language Act 2017 is an individual operational matter for the Department’s agencies, however my Department makes them aware of their obligations under the Irish Sign Language Act 2017 on a regular basis and the Oversight and Performance Delivery Agreements (OPDA) signed by my Department and its agencies include, where relevant, references to section 6 of the 2017 Act. The agencies of the Department have been asked to respond directly to the Deputy.