Vol. 470 No. 1
244 Kathleen Lynch asked the Minister for Justice the plans, if any, she has to improve the provision of overnight court transcript services; if her attention has been drawn to the current situation whereby a private agency is paid £1,000 per day to provide such a service; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18396/96]
The need for overnight transcripts arose in the Central Criminal Court in October 1995 when one of the trial judges insisted upon having this facility available to him in the course of a particular trial. Since then all the trial judges in the Central Criminal Court have requested that this service be made available to them in murder trials and other serious cases involving rape, armed robbery, etc. As the courts stenography service was unable to provide this service, arrangements were put in place to have it provided using a private stenography firm. Before any company was engaged quotations were sought from a number of private stenography firms to provide the service. On the basis of the quotations received and with the agreement of the Department of Finance a private company was engaged at a rate of £1,000 per day. I understand that this company is providing a satisfactory service.
The demand for overnight transcripts is set to continue as part of a modern courts system and my Department is making plans to ensure that the courts stenography service will, in the future, be in a position to provide this service. Currently only two of the serving court stenographers are trained in taking electronically recorded shorthand notes of court proceedings. The other stenographers take manual shorthand notes.
There are also a number of vacancies for court stenographer and efforts are being made to fill these vacancies through the Civil Service Commission. However, before advertising the competition, the Commission is undertaking a job analysis of the post of court stenographer to include the modern day requirements of the position and the developments likely to take place in the future. In addition, any of the script stenographers who so wish will be offered the opportunity to retrain as computer stenographers. In the mean-time private firms will have to be employed to provide overnight transcripts as and when required.
