As readers of Fatima Gunning’s reports on the proceedings of the Court of Criminal Justice will know, there is a significant international flavour to the wheels of justice these times.
On a visit to Cloverhill Court last Wednesday, Fatima noted that four different interpreters had been called upon for their services within the first 15 minutes of the court sitting.
Apart from the light which this throws upon the changing nature of the criminal justice system, it also raises the issue of the costs involved.
Last year, the total cost of interpretation and translation services, as accounted for in the list of Department of Justice purchase orders of more than €20,000, was €4,731,447.
For purposes of comparison the total cost of ‘Interpretation and Translation Services’ in 2016 was €478,283. That means that the costs of providing language services to persons who find themselves within the justice system has increased by ten times in the last decade.
Translators are also available to sentenced prisoners from overseas but there is no reference to that on any of the accounts that I have seen for the Prison Service so it may be that those costs are also included in the overall costs of the Department of Justice which has the ultimate responsibility for running the prisons.
While the only company that appeared on the Department of Justice list of purchase orders of more than €20,000 for the provision of ‘Interpretation and Translation Services’ in 2016 was Word Perfect Translation Services Limited, last year there were a total of five different providers including Word Perfect – an indication of the growing demand for this line of work.
The other companies are Freelance Providers, Straker Europe, Forbidden City and Lingua Translation Services.
Word Perfect Translation Services is owned by Dardania Holdings which is jointly owned by Agim Gashi, who is from Albania, and Russian solicitor Olga Shajaku. They both have the same address in Castleknock. It hasn’t registered its accounts since 2020 when the company had assets of €3 million.
Freelance Providers owns Translit which is the public face of the company and Freelance itself is owned by Valorem Group Holdings but there are no ownership details available for that entity. Its directors are Tatsiana Skrabatun and Alex Chernenko.
Forbidden City is the largest of the translation services and reported net assets of just under €15 million at the end of 2023. It is entirely owned by Crystal Li and she along with Cillian Power are the two directors.
Interestingly, and an indication of the value of State contracts, Li and her rival Olga Shajaku in Word Perfect were involved in a dispute that reached the High Court and ultimately the Supreme Court in 2020. That case peripherally involved former senior civil servant, and Secretary of the Department of An Taoiseach under Bertie Ahern, Paddy Teahon, who was on the board of Word Perfect but not a director.
The dispute was over the awarding to Li’s company of a contract for translators for the immigration services formerly held by Word Perfect. Both Word Perfect and Li were also providing translators for the Gardaí in their dealings with immigrants. The court cases concerned how the tenders for such contracts were awarded.
A court decision on the contracts initially favoured Forbidden City (also known as translation.ie) but that was successfully appealed by Word Perfect. The matter was eventually resolved with both companies continuing to thrive from the expanding demand for their services as the criminal justice system diversifies in tandem or perhaps even ahead of the immigration curve.
Straker Europe is another company in the translation business. It has an address in Killarney and its directors are Merryn and Grant Straker and David Sowerby. The two Strakers live in New Zealand and the ultimate owner is Straker Limited which is registered in New Zealand and advertises itself as an “Ai data-driven translation platform.”
The other provider of translators is Lingua Translation Services. Although registered with the Companies Registration Office in November 2005 it has to date filed no accounts or other information with the CRO. It is listed as owned by Antonio Fernando and its website still gives his number as the contact. It is a relatively modest player, chipping in with just under €272,000 in 2024.
It is certainly a growing sector and one unlikely to experience any downturn over the coming years.