IRC in Empathy on 12.10
Solution 1:
sudo apt-get install account-plugin-irc
to get irc account . after you can sign up your irc
Solution 2:
On 12.10 it seems like you need to install account-plugin-irc Install account-plugin-irc package to use IRC in Empathy. Perhaps this will solve the problem on earlier versions of Ubuntu (such as 12.04) as well.