PSNI ‘use Google’ after saying they have no Irish interpreter during Belfast court incident

PSNI officers used Google to identify a West Belfast grandmother as they were unable to provide an Irish language interpreter at a Belfast Court on Friday, it is claimed.

The news comes despite a Police Ombudsman ruling weeks earlier that found similar failures breached professional standards.

Máire Mhic an Fhailí (74) was cautioned under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act at the court on Friday (February 13) for wearing a Palestine Action t-shirt, after she was in attendance at the Royal Courts of Justice to support fellow activists who were being tried on obstruction charges relating to a protest in July.

Ms Mhic an Fhailí told The Irish News that when she provided her name in Irish, officers told her they had “no facilities to provide Irish language interpreters” before offering to use Google to identify her.

The incident comes weeks after the Police Ombudsman upheld Ms Mhic an Fhailí’s complaint about a similar situation in August 2025, when she was arrested at a pro-Palestinian protest after speaking Irish.

That investigation found an officer’s behaviour “likely fell short of expectations set out for officers in the PSNI Code of Ethics” when dealing with the Poleglass woman at a demonstration in Belfast city centre.

The PSNI accepted the Ombudsman’s recommendation that the officer be subject to performance procedures and said “updated operational guidance was supplied to officers”.

“I was coming down, about to leave the building, surrounded by three police officers who then ended up charging me under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act for wearing the t-shirt in the courtroom,” she told The Irish News.

When officers asked for her details, Ms Mhic an Fhailí gave her name in Irish and told police they were legally required to provide an interpreter.

“I gave my name in Irish. They said they didn’t have an interpreter for Irish, so then they ended up Googling my name,” she told The Irish News.

“I said ‘The law says you provide an interpreter’.

“But she said ‘We don’t have an interpreter,’ and I said ‘Okay, arrest me, because I’m not taking second and third hand interpretation. Your job is to get me an interpreter’.

“She actually Googled my name, it came up, the police file came up. But she said quite clearly, ‘We do not have any facilities to provide Irish language interpreters’.

“They said they didn’t have one and they don’t have the facilities to provide an Irish language interpreter, which is in clear breach of everything that the Police Ombudsman said about my previous case.”

Kevin Winters of KRW Law, who represented Ms Mhic an Fhailí in the Ombudsman complaint, said the incident showed supposed new PSNI guidance around the Irish language was being ignored.

“What on earth is the point of promoting the existence of protocol if it’s just going to be ignored all the time?” he said.

“Those protocols were supposed to represent a progressive way forward on police recognition of the status of Irish language. Today’s incident is a depressing déjà vu on PSNI Irish language equality failings.”

In January’s Ombudsman report, the investigator found that while officers at the August protest requested Ms Mhic an Fhailí’s details in English multiple times, “police made no efforts to translate these details”.

When asked during interview why officers never considered using a translation service, the officer said it was “not appropriate due to the on-going protest”.

The Ombudsman submitted a policy recommendation to the PSNI on how officers deal with members of the public who speak Irish, taking into consideration the Irish Language Act.

Chief Superintendent Stephen Murray, Head of the PSNI’s Professional Standards Department, said at the time: “Even prior to this complaint to the Ombudsman this incident was subject to an immediate internal review which clearly identified organisational learning."