Sir, - I refer to the letter from Mr Kevin Healy, RTE Director of Public Affairs, regarding the live captioning of programmes. He stated that RTE was recruiting from an English company and that there were no broadcast stenographers in the country.
Court reporters and live captioners are, at present, being trained in this country. Bray Institute of Further Education offers a course in court reporting and live captioning. It was first launched as a stenography course on a pilot basis in 1984 and has since developed into a two-year full-time course. The college is currently examining the feasibility of expanding it to allow for a third year of intensive training in both captioning and court reporting.
Students are prepared to sit the relevant professional examinations and BIFE is the only examining centre for the American registered professional reporters examination (RPR) in the UK and Ireland.
Our former students are working in court reporting, in the Dail and as live captioners with the BBC, ITV, Sky Television and, of course, RTE (through Doyle Court Reporters). At present the UK television companies come to the college to recruit and our representatives travel to the UK on a regular basis to liase with the BBC and Sky Television.
We would be very willing to work more closely with the Irish television companies in the training of captioners and we are now contacting them to discuss how we can work together to meet the needs of the hard of hearing community in the future. - Yours, etc.,
Carol Hanny, Principal, Bray Institute of Further Education, Bray, Co. Wicklow.