£100K spent on court interpreters

Many offences are in connection with alleged driving offences

More than £100,000 has been spent by the Public Prosecution Service on hiring interpreters for foreign nationals appearing in NI's courts.

The money was spent over a 12-month period dealing with more than 20 different languages.

It comes after a magistrate in County Fermanagh was forced to release a Hungarian national because no interpreter was available.

Subsequently, the defendant could not understand court proceedings.

The Impartial Reporter newspaper reported that Resident Magistrate Bonita Boyd said she had "no jurisdiction" to deal with the case because of the language barrier and the man was released pending a report to the PPS.

Interpreters were needed for languages including Polish, Portuguese, Lithuanian, Slovak, Russian, Ukranian and Latvian.

'Safer driving'

The prosecution service said it would not be financially viable to employ its own interpreters.

A spokesman said: "It would not be economical for the PPS to employ its own interpreters due to the large number of languages, 21 in 2006-2007, some of which only appear a couple of times per year."

Many of the offences involving foreign nationals are in connection with alleged driving offences.

Earlier this year, a PSNI team visited Lithuania to promote safer driving among those planning to live and work in Northern Ireland.

PSNI inspector Alywin Gurney said they wanted to ask Lithuanian police to advise their citizens on road safety.

"Most of the offences are for driving without insurance or with excess alcohol," he said.

"Part of the problem is you have a situation where a group of young men are all living together and there is a big drink culture, as most of them are not going home to a stable family life."