Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCeann Comhairle as an gceist seo a roghnú and I thank the Minister of State for being here. The lack of a regulatory framework and national standards for professional interpretation in judicial but also medical settings is an issue of huge concern in this country following the judgement by the Court of Appeal in the case of Director of Public Prosecutions v. HM and BO, which quashed the conviction of a married couple who were convicted of female genital mutilation, as the court found evidence of inaccuracies and distortions in the interpretation of the appellant's testimony, including the mistranslation of key legal and medical terms, omission of critical information, confusion of pronouns, and distortion of questions and answers which affected the jury's ability to accurately assess the appellant's credibility and reliability. Government needs to take action to deal with the lack of training and testing of legal interpreters in this country. Interpreters should have a high level of proficiency in English and in another language. However, the ability to speak two languages is not enough. They also need to master legal terminology in both languages and to be familiar with regional variations of vocabulary and idioms. In addition, they require excellent short-term memory along with consecutive and whispered simultaneous interpreting skills. Further, interpreters must also be able to preserve the register used by the speaker. Interpreters also need to understand ethical principles applicable to legal and to medical interpretation. This is a specialised role that requires significant training and competence, but there is no accredited training for legal interpreters in Ireland. They are not tested to establish their competence and there is no national standards framework or professional code of ethics. That means in practice that anyone who can speak two languages can work as an interpreter in the courts, healthcare settings and other public institutions. Without reliable interpreting services, language barriers can hinder everything from healthcare and education to legal processes and community integration. We need a strong legislative framework that underpins and regulates this crucial provision. It is not only necessary but fundamental to promoting equity and inclusion. We can look at the differential to Irish Sign Language because that got official recognition through the Irish Sign Language Act 2017, unlike spoken language interpreting, so there is a differential because this mandates public bodies to provide accredited ISL interpreters. The lack of a professional framework for spoken interpretation creates significant clinical and patient safety risks in medical settings when medical consultations rely on untrained staff or family members. There are also risks in education as schools often lack a formal policy or budget for this and frequently rely on children and friends to translate for parents. This issue has been raised for decades. In 2008, the then Minister of State with responsibility for integration, Conor Lenihan, published a report, Developing Quality, Cost Effective Interpreting and Translation Services in Ireland. The report addressed the lack of regulation in Ireland's translation and interpreting sectors and there were a number of recommendations, including a whole-of-government approach, setting national standards, requiring specific qualifications, and establishing a central register of accredited interpreters. To date, no such centralised regulatory body or mandatory national register has been fully established across all public services. Nearly two decades after that, many of the original problems, such as the use of unqualified interpreters, persist in the legal, asylum and healthcare systems. There are examples in other jurisdictions where this has been done effectively, such as Italy and Sweden. All of the evidence and research tells us that this needs to be regulated.

Sentiment score: 0.12

I am disappointed by that response. The Minister of State referred to a directive of the European Parliament that compels member states to take concrete measures to ensure interpretation and translation provided meets the necessary quality standards. I have presented an example of where that did not happen. There is a line in the directive that member states must endeavour to establish registers of interpreters and translators. This is something that is best practice, which professional linguists and people such as Professor Mary Phelan in DCU have been calling for for decades. We need to move away from the concept that any bilingual person can be a competent interpreter. We need to move away from outsourcing because there is an issue with quality control. We need to have accredited, university-level courses for legal interpreters. We need a regulatory body and a register. We need for longer trials to have two competent interpreters. The UK has a new qualifications framework and a contract for spoken language services that was tendered in autumn 2024. We need to follow suit. It is not just me who is saying this. People who are experts in in this field are saying it because we need to develop a framework for formal accreditation and a national register for spoken language interpreters in healthcare and judicial settings. There have been examples where people have gone into hospital and people have used Google Translate. It primarily concerns migrant healthcare. There is a report with recommendations. They just need to be implemented.

Sentiment score: 0.08