I propose to take Questions Nos. 635 and 636 together.
I have previously indicated my dissatisfaction with the systems in place within the criminal justice system for compiling statistics in such a way that everybody using the statistics is clear as to the precise meaning. For example, I have found that in the past court statistics were maintained primarily for the purpose of measuring activity levels and thereby measuring resource requirements for the courts.
Taking the case of statistics relating to applications for judicial separation as an example, previous Ministers for Justice and myself have given figures in respect of the number of applications for judicial separation to the Circuit Court since the enactment of the Judicial Separation and Family Law Reform Act, 1989, to 31 July 1995, which, if totalled would come to over 11,000. Such statistics, which have been given many times, were a measure of the actual volume of business which was before the courts over the years, but in some cases involved an element of double counting, if a case went from one term to another.
When I became aware of the lack of clarity and difficulties of interpretation which existed in the past in relation to judicial separation statistics, I instituted a complete review of such statistics to ensure that everyone who had occasion to use the statistics would know exactly what was represented by the figures produced to avoid any double counting.
The actual number of individual applications for judicial separation which were made to the Circuit Court frem the commencement of the 1989 Act of 31 July 1995 was 6,712.