Our ethnic complexity - Recruitment needed

SURELY this country should by now have sufficient experience of dealing with a growing immigrant population to ensure that interpreters are on hand when needed.

Nothing could be further from reality, however, judging by today’s report on the difficulties some immigrant families face.

It appears that official interpreters are so hard to find that children are being drafted in to act as translators and explain what their parents and social workers are saying at meetings. Doubtless, Ireland’s increasing ethnic complexity is one reason for a shortage of interpreters. Lack of privacy regarding personal information is also cited. Are pay rates another?

The HSE denies that social workers ever used children as interpreters but concedes that parents may have asked them “to assist with interpretation”. A robust recruitment campaign might solve a communications problem that will not simply go away.