Red Bee Media Supplies Irish Sign Language Services for RTÉ; Collaborates With Trinity College Dublin for Training Program

Red Bee recently began providing Irish Sign Language (ISL) services for RTÉ, increasing workflow efficiency and assisting Ireland’s national public service broadcaster in the provision of signed content much closer to the original air time. Providing around 200 hours of ISL-translated material each year, Red Bee is assisting RTÉ in providing this vital access service. Red Bee hopes to create an ISL qualification for Irish Sign language translators with the Council of Irish Sign Language Interpreters (CISLI) and is also collaborating with RTÉ and Trinity College Dublin to create a training program.

Red Bee was chosen by RTÉ as an ISL provider earlier this year and is now delivering their services to RTÉ with reduced turnaround times through its file-based workflows, with a dedicated studio and interpretation team.

“As a national public service broadcaster we have a responsibility to provide quality programming in as inclusive a way as possible, and with a focus on quality and efficiency. Red Bee and RTÉ can now provide more up-to-date access programming to audiences”, says Kevin Burns, Head of RTÉ Learn and Access.

While setting up the services for RTÉ, Red Bee identified a need for CPD (Continuing Professional Development) training and qualification for Irish interpreters and deaf translators. This prompted a collaboration between Red Bee, RTÉ, and the ISL linguistics team from Trinity College in Dublin to set up training and workshops. The goal is to establish a qualification setup for interpreters with the Council of Irish Sign Language Interpreters (CISLI).

“With increasing regulations and higher audience demands on more frequent and qualitative translations, sign language services for broadcast media is a growing field. We are proud to be a part of giving ISL speakers the opportunity to enjoy quality programming from RTÉ and it is very exciting to be a part of working towards a qualification program for Irish interpreters and Deaf translators”, says Lesley McGilp, General Manager, Sign Language Translation, Access Services, Red Bee.