This article is also available in: Gaelic

Few people understand it, even fewer can articulate it and millions of euros are spent promoting it — no, not the inner workings of the European Parliament, but the Irish language.

Around 100,000 people speak Gaeilge on a daily basis, out of an Irish population of just over 4.5 million, but despite the small numbers the European Parliament is pushing ahead with an EU and Irish pledge to make it a full working language of the bloc.

However, it can't find enough people with the language skills to match its ambitious plans, despite the fact that studying the language is compulsory in Ireland until the age of 18.

“There are not enough interpreters on the Irish market,” said a senior Parliament official with knowledge of the EU’s translation and interpretation departments. “They don’t have enough trained people to pass the concours [the tests EU staff must take to get a permanent job] so, for example, many in translation end up being recruited on temporary contracts.”

This year the Parliament has advertised 26 new posts for Irish speakers, recruited 14 Irish speaking contract staffers and is expected to splash out an estimated €3.7 million to cover the costs of translation and interpretation, training of Irish officials and subscription to Irish-language databases to comply with the new linguistic requirement, according to a leaked 2018 budget report from the Parliament's top staffer, Secretary-General Klaus Welle.

The number of documents to be translated into Irish “should increase gradually every year between January 2017 and January 2021.”

The struggle to find qualified Irish translators dates back to 2007, when it became an official working language of the EU. Because of recruitment and resource concerns, temporary derogations were put in place from 2007 to 2011 and from 2012 to 2016, limiting the amount of translation and interpretation needed. Many Irish translators were hired to work exclusively on regulations adopted jointly by the European Parliament and the Council.

Although the Council decided in 2015 to extend these exemptions by another five years from January 2017, it also declared that the derogation system would be phased out gradually in order to make Irish a full working language of the EU starting on January 1, 2022.

"No later than June 2021, the Commission shall report to the Council on whether the Union institutions have sufficient available capacity, relative to the other official languages" to put Irish at the same level as other EU languages, the Council said.

Welle's preliminary report on the assembly’s 2018 budget said the number of documents to be translated into Irish “should increase gradually every year between January 2017 and January 2021.”

Brexit side-effect

Some Parliament officials say the recruitment drive has become more urgent in the wake of the Brexit vote. With Ireland likely to suffer more than any other EU country after the U.K. leaves the bloc, they believe it is important to avoid marginalizing the Gaeilgeoir community.

According to figures provided by the Parliament, its Irish translation unit has 23 vacant posts. In addition, there are two staff interpreters “with passive Irish,” a Parliament spokesperson said — meaning they can understand it but wouldn't be able to use it at the required level.

The Parliament currently has 14 freelance interpreters “with Irish in their language combination,” of whom “11 are regularly available for the Parliament.” The number of qualified and accredited freelance interpreters in Irish “remains extremely limited," the spokesperson said.

Interpretation is currently only provided from Irish into English during the Parliament's plenary sessions in Strasbourg. "There are currently no plans to recruit staff interpreters for Irish," an official said.

The European Commission currently has two interpreters with "passive Irish" and three lawyer-linguists who work in Irish and other languages, according to a Commission official. Since Irish became a language of the EU, the European Personnel Selection Office has sought to recruit Irish language translators, lawyer-linguists and assistants.

Despite the low numbers, Ireland has been pushing hard to come up with attractive job offers for qualified Irish speakers.

About 500 Irish people are employed by the European Commission, including contractors. There are 11 Irish MEPs.

An official from Ireland’s Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs — the Gaeltacht being the Irish-speaking region — told POLITICO the Irish government had spent more than €13 million to increase “the number of qualified graduates who can meet EU recruitment needs,” including by “educating over 500 students in advanced Irish language skills.”

The official said “a new tranche of funding amounting to €3.87 million for this initiative was agreed for the period 2015-2016 to 2023-2024."

“It is estimated that 677 students will graduate from these courses over this period,” he added.

About 500 Irish people are employed by the European Commission, including contractors. There are 11 Irish MEPs, including three members of the Sinn Féin party, one of the main advocates of the use of Irish language in Ireland.

In 2015, Sinn Féin MEP Liadh Ní Riada went on "strike" for the duration of Seachtain na Gaeilge, the "Irish Week" which generally runs from March 1-17, refusing to use English in the Parliament to protest against the lack of Irish in the EU.

“It saddens me that as a public representative, an Irish person, and a woman from the Gaeltacht who grew up with Irish, that I cannot use my own language as I go about my work,” Ní Riada said at the International Conference on Language Rights in Dublin in 2015.