Legal interpreters in the news in Ireland

This article consists of a review of court reports from national and provincial newspapers in Ireland from 2003 to 1st August 2010. The reports provide an insight into the attitudes of judges, lawyers and police officers to defendants who are not proficient in English. The issue of defendants’ proficiency in English is a recurrent one. Coverage suggests that interpreters are not always provided in police stations or in the courts and that some judges continue to allow friends and family members to act as interpreters. Meanwhile, some solicitors consistently request interpreters for their clients. Other salient issues are cost, interpreter competency and interpreter ethics

Interpreting in Northern Ireland

This article examines how interpreter provision in Northern Ireland developed in a very different way from Ireland or indeed England, Scotland or Wales. In general terms, interpreter provision in Northern Ireland is very good in that interpreters are routinely provided for hospitals, social welfare, schools and of course police stations and courts. The majority of interpreters have undergone training, and instead of outsourcing interpreting services to a translation agency, the authorities have opted for an in-house service for health and social welfare, a social economy enterprise for legal interpreting and a community development organisation for other types of interpreting. Each organisation has a register of interpreters

Medical interpreting and the law in the European Union

In 2011, the Danish government announced that from June that year it would no longer cover the costs of medical interpreters for patients who had been living in Denmark for more than seven years. The Dutch Ministry of Health followed with an even more draconian approach; from 1 January 2012 the cost of translation and interpreting would no longer be covered by the state. These two announcements led to widespread concern about whether or not there is a legal foundation for interpreter provision in healthcare. This article considers United Nations treaties, conventions from the Council of Europe and European Union law. European Union member states have been slow to sign up to international agreements to protect the rights of migrant workers. The European Union itself has only recently moved into the area of discrimination and it is unclear if the Race Directive covers language. As a result, access to interpreters in healthcare, where it exists, is dependent on national anti-discrimination legislation or on positive action taken at national or local level rather than on European or international law

Interpreters and cultural mediators – different but complementary roles

This article considers the roles of medical interpreters and cultural mediators and proposes that the two should be seen as separate. In the last six years cultural mediators have been trained in Ireland not to be interpreters but to help immigrants from other countries to access and use healthcare services as well as mediating in situations of conflict between health service providers and patients. Meanwhile, interpreters have been hired to bridge the language gap. Codes of ethics for medical interpreters and competencies of cultural mediators are considered in order to clarify role boundaries and to explore similarities and differences between the two roles

Irish Households, Assessing the Impact of the Economic Crisis

The impact of the changing economic environment on Irish households has been significant, with net worth falling 30 per cent since 2006. This article uses Quarterly Financial Accounts data to investigate how they have adjusted to the vastly different economic climate with which they are now faced. It finds that households’ portfolio composition has shifted considerably, due largely to falling asset values. Results also suggest that households are now entering a long period of debt reduction. The consequence of deleveraging is a reduction in household consumption; a process that cannot proceed without an increase in the household savings rate. In the wake of the economic slowdown, there is a risk that increased savings could be a drag on consumption and bank lending in the future, with negative implications for the speed of economic recovery.

The Rise and Fall of Sectoral Net Wealth in Ireland

This article is about the loss in wealth precipitated by the latest financial crisis and economic recession has been substantial.

A summary of research in elementary school social studies (1951-1955).

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Community interpreting in Ireland

Ireland has changed from a country of net emigration to one of steady immigration by asylum seekers and by workers from both inside and outside the European Economic Area. There has been a rapid change from a mainly monolingual society to a multilingual one. Clearly this presents particular problems when non-English speakers are in contact with officialdom. Interpreting is provided in the courts, in police stations, in hospitals and over the phone for general practitioners. But the interpreters receive no training. They are not tested and there is no Code of Ethics. The official attitude is that this is merely a temporary problem because the non-English speakers will learn English and then there will no longer be a need for interpretation

Interpreting, translation and public bodies in Ireland: the need for policy and training

This advocacy paper was commissioned by the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI)to provide an overview of interpreting and translation provision in Ireland in police stations, the courts and hospitals

Mary G. Phelan to Mr. Meredith (1 October 1962)

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/mercorr_pro/1342/thumbnail.jp