The European Commission has told the Government it needs to brush up on its Irish grammar or risk undermining the use of Gaeilge as an official EU language, writes Jamie Smythin Brussels.
It has also warned that a lack of properly qualified Irish translators and an acute shortage of interpreters pose a real threat to the EU executive's language services.
The advice is contained in a briefing note prepared for the Commissioner for Multilingualism, Leonard Orban, who met the Government last week to discuss how the introduction of Irish as the 23rd official language of the EU was progressing.
The note says a "new edition of the official grammar has not been published for years and the current edition is out of print". This has led other Irish language authorities and universities to fill the gap, which has resulted in the promotion of an alternative standard that partly conflicts with the official one.
"This is causing some confusion among translators, in-house and freelance alike, and adding to the institutions' workload (eg extra revision of freelance work is needed)," says the note, which requests that a detailed official grammar be published as soon as possible.
Mr Orban told The Irish Timesyesterday the Government had assured him a new grammar book was being prepared. "No doubt such a book would help us a lot at the community level," he added.
The commissioner also requested more help from the Irish authorities in recruiting translators and interpreters to meet demands at EU level. But he insisted the commission was fulfilling its own commitment to the Irish language.
"We are determined to defend the right of languages at community level," he said.
But the briefing prepared for Mr Orban's visit details several problems the EU institutions have encountered since Irish was elevated to become an official EU language in January.
The main problem relates to a shortage of properly qualified Irish translators. A competition held last year yielded just 19 candidates, two of whom withdrew.
In a stark assessment, the briefing note warns: "the lack of suitable translators entails a risk for the Irish translation unit." Demand for Irish translation at the commission is also running 80 per cent above estimates provided by the Government before the language attained official status. It estimated in February 2005 that annual translation requirements would be 2,750 pages per year, but the commission now estimates the annual demand will be 5,000 pages.
The note also says there is an "acute shortage" of Irish interpreters and highlights that there is no training course in the Republic in conference interpreting.
A key problem faced by the EU is that the acquis communautaire - the total body of EU law that runs to 100,000 pages - has not yet been translated into Irish by the Government. This means there is no basis for the EU legal services to work on when they have to translate Acts codifying existing regulations.