Enda Kenny
Question:27 Mr. E. Kenny asked the Minister for Justice the proposals, if any, she has to redress the current unsatisfactory situation in the courts outlined in the joint submission from the Bar Council and the Incorporated Law Society.
Written Answers. - Submission on Courts.
Pat Rabbitte
Question:30 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Minister for Justice her response to the recent joint submission made by the Law Society and Bar Council urging the appointment of additional judges, a major refurbishment programme for courthouses and a new agency to carry out day to day management of the court system; and if she will make a statement on the matter.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 27 and 30 together. This submission, which is a quite detailed document, arrived in my Department less than two weeks ago. It requires and deserves more study than has been possible in that time — that process is now underway. My comments at this point, therefore, are of a preliminary nature.
The bottom line in the document — which is that the court service could be improved if the State committed substantial additional resources to it — will not come as a complete surprise to anybody. But, in a situation where resources are limited and the State is attempting to cope with a range of competing demands, without imposing excessive burdens on the taxpayer, we must try to identify the priority requirement in the courts area, as in other areas, and try to find the resources to met those priorities. My Department is and has been engaged in that very process.
There are issues, apart from resources, which would require the most careful consideration. One of the major recommendations in the submission, for example — and mentioned specifically by Deputy Rabbitte — is that a new agency should be created to manage the courts. The Judiciary have already raised serious questions about this particular proposal, and their views on the matter certainly require very careful consideration. While on the subject of management, incidentally, I strongly reject the suggestion by the Law Society and the Bar Council that the problems in the courts can be attributed to management failings in the Department of Justice. That suggestion is much too facile. Departmental responsibilities for day-to-day management of the courts is and always has been handled by a small number of officials in the Courts Division of my Department who have had to operate within the budgetary provisions at their disposal. It is not they who have been responsible for decisions concerning resource commitments over the years. On top of this they inherited, rather than created, the situation where, by law, the local authorities and not the Department of Justice had responsibility for court maintenance.
Finally, I must say that a very large volume of business is conducted in the courts, and is well conducted, day-in-day-out. I do not deny that there is room for improvement. I readily acknowledge also that there is a very substantial case for improvement not alone on the principle that access to justice should be as efficient as we can possibly make it but also on commercial and other grounds. However, it is not a case of having to create order out of total chaos but of building and improving upon the positive aspects of what we already have.