The European Union has launched a new recruitment drive for lawyers fluent in the Irish language. Fluent Irish-speakers with legal training were encouraged to apply before January 9th for vacancies in EU institutions in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg.
Irish has been an official EU language since 2006, prompting the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and the Courts of Justice to look for lawyer linguists.
Candidates wishing to apply for the posts were today told they must hold a degree or a postgraduate qualification in law or have qualified as a solicitor or barrister in Ireland.
In addition to having a perfect command of Irish and English, applicants are also expected to have a very good knowledge of French, German, Spanish or Italian. Lawyers appointed to roles in the European Commission, Parliament and Council of Ministers will be asked to check the Irish-language version of legislative texts and in some cases translate short legal texts from English to Irish.
Those appointed to the Court of Justice will have to translate and revise legal documents into Irish, and occasionally translate legal documents written in Irish into English. The court is particularly interested in candidates who can translate from French.