Independent TD for Offaly Carol Nolan today described as “staggering” new figures showing that HSE spending on translation and interpreter services for patients who do not have English as their first language has more than quadrupled in five years.
The data released in answert to a parliamentary question shows that spending soared from €2,244,752 in 2020 to €11,287,959 in 2025.
The spending almost doubled between 2022 and 2023 from €3,277,133 to €6,169,179 – at a time when immigration into the country surged to a 16-year high.
The HSE revealed also revealed it had spent a total of €36.82 million on translation and similar services from 2020–2025.
Commenting on the data, Deputy Nolan said: “These figures are eye-watering. Spending has quadrupled since 2020 and is still accelerating. In just the first three months of 2026 the HSE has already spent €3.66 million which is more than the entire annual spend in 2020, 2021 or 2022.”
“The single biggest line, ‘Professional Interpreters/Translators Fees (Other Clinical/Personal Services)’, has exploded from €514,000 in 2020 to €9.14 million last year. Taxpayers have a right to know exactly what services are being delivered, by whom, and in which languages,” said Deputy Nolan.”
Deputy Nolan also highlighted that while her PQ response states a 2024 total for €9.79 million, an internal HSE breakdown of “Interpreters Fees” for 2024 provided to her separately to the PQ reply shows a figure of €11.26 million; a gap of €1.47 million.
Deputy Nolan added:
“There is a clear mismatch between what the HSE reported to me in its response to my PQ and its own internal regional payments data. This raises serious questions about transparency and accurate financial reporting. I will be following this up immediately.”
“While patients need language support, the HSE must seriously questions costs of this scale.”
“The increasing level of need for these services is also bound to be creating a ripple effect in terms of the delays caused by using interpreters during consultations, which will impact HSE capacity, productivity and output.”
“I am calling on the Minister for Health and the HSE to publish a full breakdown by language, provider, and region, and to explain why costs have spiralled so dramatically,” said the Offaly TD.
A breakdown of the spend for 2024 shows that the HSE regional health authority West and North West incurred the largest costs for translation and interpreter services that year. The €4,784,719 spend for the year in that region was more than five times the amount spent – €912,234 in RHA Dublin and South East.
