A translation company based in Co Clare has won a contract to provide translation services for Britain's presidency of the EU, which begins in July.

ETeams Ltd hopes to use a network of 45 translators based in Europe, the US, Canada and Australia to provide translation into French from English for the duration of the six-month presidency.

Most of their work will appear on the official website of the British presidency. While an eTeams director Martina Minogue declined to reveal the value of the contract, translation firms typically quote a fee of some €200 per 1,000 words.

The eTeams contract covers the translation of 1.2 million words between now and the end of the year, implying that the contract could be worth at least €240,000 to the company.

The translators will use e-mail to send text to the eTeams office at Scariff. The company won a tender placed in the EU Journal.

Owned by Ms Minogue and Nana Luke, the company has been in operation since 1991.

It is a major provider of Irish language translation services to State organisations and is a beneficiary of the Official Languages Act, which requires all public bodies to produce all published material in Irish and English.

Ms Minogue said the British contract followed through from the company's management of translation services for Ireland's EU presidency in the first half of last year.

In that period, the company translated 10,000 pages of source content to French and Irish from English.

A British Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman said it was impressed with the company's track record.

"The company's flexibility and capacity also convinced us that they will be able to process the material quickly and to the standards required," he said.