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Wards of Court

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 5 July 2017

Wednesday, 5 July 2017

Questions (140)

Jonathan O'Brien

Question:

140. Deputy Jonathan O'Brien asked the Minister for Justice and Equality if wards of court and their representatives will be given a comprehensive report on a regular basis on the way their funds are managed and the balance in each account; the way the funds were spent and administered; the number of complaints received from the representatives of the wards of court in relation to the operation of the current system; the number of these complaints that have been addressed; the reason for the delay in providing statements of accounts to those persons in 2017; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31671/17]

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Written answers

As the Deputy may be aware, the High Court has jurisdiction in wards of court matters and management of the courts is the responsibility of the Courts Service, which is independent in exercising its functions under the Courts Service Act 1998.

The Deputy will also be aware that when a person is taken into Wardship, the President of the High Court appoints a committee (usually one person, in most cases, a family member) to deal with the ward's property. In order to be of assistance to the Deputy, I have had enquiries made and the Courts Service has informed me that currently individual statements in regard to funds held in court on behalf of wards of court are provided on request to the respective committees of the wards of court. The Wards of Court office is working to enable statements to be provided automatically to the committees of wards of court, which it hopes to be able to commence during the third quarter of 2017. These statements will be high level reports on the funds in court and their performance and, if more detailed reports are required, they can be made available on request.

Given the nature of the systems in the Wards of Court office, involving individual paper files, the process of issuing individual fund statements to each of more than 2,500 cases is quite labour intensive. All data must be checked to ensure it is accurate and up to date, to avoid contravening data protection legislation and to avoid sensitive data getting into the wrong hands.

The Courts Service has also informed me that the Wards of Court office has received a small number of complaints about the inability to generate automated statements to committees. Additionally, the office has also received representations from relatives of wards who are not committees of a ward seeking statements but such requests cannot be granted as this would be a breach of confidentiality.

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