Judge in Polish row queried cost of interpreters to State

JUDGE MARY Devins, who apologised for a second time yesterday for remarks she made last week about Polish migrants, questioned in 2010 why the State had to pay for interpreters for Polish defendants when “the country was on its knees”.

Judge Devins yesterday issued an “unreserved” second apology after a public backlash over her remarks in court last Friday suggesting social welfare was a Polish charity.

In September 2010, at Claremorris District Court, Judge Devins made comments about the use of interpreters by Polish migrants. The judge was dealing with two Polish men – both of whom used interpreters – on a number of driving offences. She asked one of the men directly, without the use of the interpreter, how long he had been in the State. He said he had been in Ireland for seven years.

“So you have been in this country for seven years and you haven’t learned at least one of our languages,” Judge Devin said in a case reported in the Mayo News at the time. “Why, when the country is on its knees, do we have to pay for a Polish interpreter?” she asked.

Yesterday Judge Devins issued an unreserved apology, after her remarks last week and an apology on Wednesday were criticised by members of the Polish community and migrant groups.

“I unreservedly and without qualification apologise for my off-the-cuff comments at a recent court case,” she said yesterday.

“I understand and accept the hurt these comments caused to members of the Polish community. This was never my intention and I express my sorrow for same,” she said in a statement.

She was apologising for a remark she made at court in Castlebar last Friday during the case of a trainee plumber who called an Irish security guard a “fat Polish f***er”.

The case had been adjourned some months earlier by a different judge who ordered him to save up and pay €1,000 to a Polish charity in lieu of a conviction and a fine.

The case returned before Judge Devins on Friday. When the question arose at Friday’s court hearing over whether there was a Polish charity in Ireland, Judge Devins remarked: “A Polish charity? There is. It’s called the social welfare.”

In her first apology on Wednesday Judge Devins said the remarks were meant to refer to another recent incident involving Polish defendants on social welfare and it was “never her intent to offend any community” and “if insult was taken she apologised”.

Yesterday she said Wednesday’s statement “was an attempt to provide a context and was not intended in any way to dilute my apology for such unwarranted comments”.

After she apologised yesterday, migrant advocacy group the Integration Centre reversed a decision to complain about the judge to the Garda.