European Diary:The European Parliament reverberated to the sound of Irish last week with a visit by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who used the occasion to trumpet the Government's success in establishing Irish as an official EU language.
The language may not get official status in Europe until January 1st, but the parliament's linguistic service laid on the first simultaneous translation in a plenary session for the Taoiseach.
In his address, on the future of Europe, Mr Ahern told MEPs that nothing could better illustrate "Europe's respect for the individual character of its states" than the enhanced status to be enjoyed by the Irish language in the EU.
Fianna Fáil MEP Seán Ó Neachtain, who is the only MEP to speak Irish as a first language, clearly agreed and was effusive in his praise for Mr Ahern in a short speech.
"The Taoiseach deserves to be given a lot of credit for ensuring that the European Council . . . supported his proposal to promote the Irish language," Ó Neachtain said as Gaeilge, causing a host of journalists (myself included) and MEPs to dive for their headsets and the interpretation service.
A few minutes later in a briefing Mr Ahern confided to the press pack that he had "pulled every stroke in the book" to win the approval of other states to get Irish its rightful place among the 23 other official languages of the union.
The hard-fought campaign had resulted in 60 new jobs for Irish speakers in Europe, said Mr Ahern, who is keen to woo Irish speakers ahead of next year's election.
Yet behind all the back-slapping and grandiose statements by politicians it seems all is not well with the planned introduction of Irish at EU institutions.
Due to a lack of properly qualified Irish interpreters, Patrick Twidle, head of the enlargement and multilingualism unit at the European Parliament, has had to place restrictions on Irish interpretation.
At least nine interpreters are required to provide a full translation service during parliament plenary sessions and more interpreters will be needed to provide a service at the European Commission and council.
But the parliament has currently just four freelance interpreters on its books with a knowledge of Irish.
It is also struggling to recruit properly qualified staff and a job advertisement published in June attracted not a single properly qualified candidate.
This is hardly surprising given that there are no third-level courses in interpretation for Irish available in the Republic.
In fact, the European Parliament interpreting directorate has had to arrange bursaries for five of these applicants to attend the European masters in conference interpreting course, September 2006 - June 2007 at the University of Westminster in London to fill the gap.
But with not enough staff Mr Twidle recently told MEPs they would have to give prior notice if they wish to speak in Irish during plenary sessions; interpretation will be provided from, but not into, Irish; and interpretation will initially not be available during committee meetings of the European Parliament.
The council and commission in Brussels will also suffer from this dearth of interpreters, despite a budget for the introduction of Irish that is likely to run to more than €1 million a year.
Sinn Féin, for one, isn't happy about the mishandling of the Irish language strategy.
"People throughout Ireland are rightly proud that the decision has been taken to make Irish an official and working language of the EU," says MEP Bairbre de Brún, who frequently begins her speeches in Brussels and Strasbourg in Irish before switching into English.
"However, in practical terms, much of the preparatory work was not done as quickly as it should have been by the Government and the EU institutions."
Ms de Brún said translation is also a problem and will mean the number of documents translated into Irish will also have to be rationed, at least initially.
Despite 437 applications for 30 translator jobs, just 22 candidates will be interviewed this week for the posts due to a huge drop-out rate among applicants.
Asked about the issue last week on his trip to Brussels Mr Ahern said something would have to be done to address the problem.
But with just four weeks left before Irish takes its place alongside English, French and the host of other official EU languages it now seems too late for a quick fix.
It will also offer political ammunition to those at home and abroad who believe the campaign to get Irish recognised as an official EU language was indeed a political "stroke" rather than a serious attempt to encourage people to speak Irish.