1200 Court Interpreters get pay cut €25ph to €18ph

[KingKane]

Why is the State paying for any interpreters? If people cannot speak or understand English, they should not be in the country?

I sorry to hear you're planning on running members of our Gaeltacht communities out of the country?

[KingKane]

The Lionbridge contract should have been reduced by 15-20%, if the interpreters are unhappy with the rates they pay then take it up with their employer, 12 to 15 euros an hour doesnt seem like rock bottom wages to me. If they are unhappy with the wage rates they should leave ireland

You realise that at least some of those interpreters would be Irish people who speak other languages or are we meant to be like the Brits and only able to speak one language?

[fionnmccool]

A salary of a judge cannot be reduced under the constitution. Offices like those of judges and the president cannot have their salaries cut, with good reason. They often have to do things (rule on the constitutionality of Acts, refer Bills, reach judgements, etc) that would seriously piiss off the government. The fear is that to intimidate them, the government would simply threaten any judge or president who annoyed them with a cut in salary.

There is ample evidence that that would happen if governments could get away with it. A past government tried to intimidate an independent-minded Ombudsman by reducing the staffing provided. It has recently done the same with the Equality Authority, imposing cuts that effectively prevented the authority from doing its job, because its job annoyed some ministers. (The excuse about the state finances was lame. A 43% cut was way over the top, and only designed to silence the body. Whether you agree with the body or not, if the government wants to axe it they should have the honesty to do it openly, not sneakily put in place cuts larger than experienced by any other body, purely as part of an act of political revenge.)

Judges and the president are given two protections:
- they can only be removed by the Oireachtas, not the government.
- their salaries cannot be cut.

They are vital protections that exist in most democracies.

Who sets a judges salary and decides how much it will be ? Cant' whoever sets the salary also reduce it ?

[blacbloc]

A lucid and intelligent argument. After all, everyone knows they do speech and language checks at customs.

I'm guessing you probably don't travel much Gelnnshane. That's probably a good thing.

You do a nice line in dry humour, Draoicht!

[markeys]

Why is the State paying for any interpreters? If people cannot speak or understand English, they should not be in the country?

Why are you not posting 100% in Irish? Get out you sponger.