Courts Service spent more than €5m on interpreters over last 18 months

Interpreters had been provided in 76 different languages last year

The Courts Service said the 10 most common interpretation requests this year were led by Romanian, followed by Polish, and Portuguese.

The Courts Service spent more than €5m on interpreters for criminal trials and civil proceedings over the past 18 months.

This year’s bill is on track to be much larger than last year, with €2.09m spent in the six-month period between January and June.