Sir, - As chairman of a group which is largely composed of Irish-speaking barristers, I must take issue with the comments of Gerry Curran, the Media Relations Adviser of An tSeirbh∅s Ch·irteanna/The Courts Service (October 24th). In truth, little has changed since the service took over responsibility for the provision of court services, despite the express statutory obligation upon it to have regard to the State policy of bilingualism in the provision of a courts system.
Mr Curren is correct in stating that there are several judges, registrars and staff who can carry out their tasks through the medium of Irish. However, there is no co-ordination of the listing system to ensure that Irish language cases are listed before Irish-speaking judges, much less in courts to which an Irish-speaking registrar is assigned. This means that, even in the Gaeltacht, litigants have to suffer the indignity of an interpreter, appointed on an ad hoc basis and operating in the same fashion as interpreters used prior to 1922 - since not even the most rudimentary simultaneous translation facilities are provided. Whatever about the 209 other languages and dialects to which Mr Curran refers, one would have thought that it is not too much to ask that a regular court sitting be held, staffed with Irish-speakers and presided over by an Irish-speaking judge, to bear cases in the national language.
It is strange to see that the service is arranging to have "the most commonly used forms" available in Irish in anticipation of proposed legislation. Quite apart from its own express statutory obligation, the service is surely aware that the High Court ordered that all its rules and forms be translated into Irish more than a decade ago. Despite this, there is still no publicly available translation. Notwithstanding the Supreme Court's recent (April 2001) condemnation of the persistent neglect of this area (the court's characterisation), it appears that the new rules and forms of the circuit court are to be published in the coming weeks in English only.
As for web-sites, one has only to compare the web-site of the Bar Council (a private body), which is in both English and Irish, with the overwhelmingly English web-site of the service to see how far the service is from achieving any sort of parity or esteem for Irish in the legal system. - Yours, etc.,
Suzanne Boylan, BL., Cathaoirleach, Craobh na gCeithre Ch·irt, An Leabharlann Dl∅ Na Ceithre Ch·irt, Baile Atha Cliath.