Less than 30 minutes of Irish was spoken in the European Parliament in its first full year as an official language
50% of the Republic’s MEPs, including the Dublin Shinner Mary Lou Macdonald, haven’t muttered a cheep in Irish, one further MEP Colm Burke (FG) "spoke one Irish sentence at the start of one of his speeches".
The cost of implementing the language across all EU institutions? €3.5 million.
The cost of interpretation in the parliament? €360,000.
Cost per minute of debate translated? €13,000.
Average of Irish spoken for each day the parliament sits? 30 seconds.
Number of interpreters employed at salary of 30,000 euros per month? 4
"Irish's" newly afforded "official working language" status is not set in stone and will be reviewed by European officials in four years’ time.
I’ve no problem with the use of minority languages in the EU parliament being sponsored by the rest of the European Union; it would be nice though if those who pressed so hard for Irish’s recognition as an official working language would have the decency to use the damned thing as their actual “official working language” for at least a little bit more than 30 seconds a day.
And is it not compulsory for Shinners to at least makes some kind of attempt at speaking when on parliamentary business?
Or are there not enough Unionists present in Brussels and Strasbourg to make that worthwhile for Ms MacDonald?
6 comments:
"30,000 euros per month"
Surely not!! That's outrageous!!
Reading back the original article, that might be a total for the four interpreters, but still... for 30 seconds work a day that's not too bad a salary!
Average of Irish spoken for each day the parliament sits? 30 seconds.
Are you sure these people are not also employed for the purpose of translating written documents as well.
Either way, its a joke. While Id like to see Irish recognised as a European language, I dont personally see the need for it to be spoken in the EU institutions nor indeed for its documents to be available in written form in Irish.
Apparently the interpeters and translators are working completely separately; from the article:
As well as the interpreting service, there are three full- time translators for the parliament, at €243,000 per year to translate texts.
Apparently the interpeters and translators are working completely separately; from the article:
Thats fair enough so, sorry, id glanced down through it pretty quickly.
I do believe that there are better ways of promoting the Irish language then these types of measures.
For instance, were a person interested in obtaining an Irish copy of an EU document, then why not at that stage refer it to a contract company capable of translating the document as opposed to having people in full time employment translating all documents
There's a stronger argument for having simply one translator available at the EU employed solely for that purposes, contract translation companies will probably work out that much more expensive in the long run.
It's the simultanous interpreters which seriously needs to be looked at?
Why the need for four?
Reduce it to one and I still think he'll not be dying of overwork.
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