A campaign is being launched to advise Irish speakers that they have a statutory right to have their case conducted in Irish in any court.
An Coimisinéir Teanga Seán Ó Cuirreáin said the campaign is being launched to counteract the perception of ‘compulsory English’ in legal affairs.
Over 10,000 requests were made to the Courts Service last year for interpreters for 71 different languages.
Requests for Polish interpreters topped the list - the other main languages were Romanian, Lithuanian, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Latvian, Portuguese, French, Czech and Arabic.
The bill for interpreters in the Courts Service is over €2m, while the cost of interpretation services for Irish was less than €2,000 in total during 2006 and fell further to €1,012 in 2007.
Mr Ó Cuirreáin said; 'Interpretation is not required where the judge and other participants are fluent in Irish, but the percentage of such cases is negligible on an annual basis and in a national context.'
The right to use Irish in court whether as a witness, defendant, plaintiff or victim is guaranteed under the Official Languages Act.
Mr Ó Cuirreáin continued that a person may not be disadvantaged or inconvenienced or incur additional expense because of his or her choice of official language.
