Vol. 5 No. 5
asked the Minister for Home Affairs if he will issue a detailed financial statement shewing:—
(a) The estimated cost of salaries, pensions, and other expenses necessary in connection with the establishment of the proposed Judicial System;
(b) The annual cost of the present Judicial System.
I shall endeavour to arrange with the Minister for Finance for the issue within the next few days of a statement on the lines suggested by the Deputy. I cannot, however, promise that the part of the statement which will deal with the estimated cost of the proposed future system will be detailed. The Deputy will realise that it is a sufficiently difficult task to forecast, with precision, the future cost of even an existing system: the difficulty is, of course, very much greater when an attempt is made to estimate for a totally new system. A rough estimate has, however, already been made from which it would appear that the new system will be substantially more economical than the present system.
I was about to ask a question supplementary to this. Would the Minister for Home Affairs put the Dáil in possession of these calculations, and state exactly to what extent these economies would apply to which he refers in his answer?
I stated in the answer that it was extremely difficult to make anything in the nature of an exact forecast, but that I would endeavour to arrange with the Minister for Finance to issue a statement on the lines suggested by Deputy Good. The statement will be as ample as it is possible to make it, having regard to the other difficulties.
