This year we are asking for a sum of about £40,000 for the District Court service or almost £9,000 less than last year. The decreased provision is accounted for in the following way. The abolition of the office of Registar of District Court Clerks has resulted in the transfer of the functions of that office to the Department of Justice and it is considered that the salaries of the headquarters staff of the District Court Branch should properly be borne on the Vote for the Office of the Minister for Justice and not as last year on the Vote for the District Court. There will be no saving in the running expenses of the District Court Branch this year, but the fact that that item has been taken out of the District Court Vote naturally reduces the amount for which we have estimated in respect of that Vote. A substantial saving is, however, anticipated in the cost of Deputy District Justices. The provision under this head has been decreased by £3,600, which decrease has been made possible by the appointment of two permanent Assistant Justices which it is hoped will obviate the necessity of appointing Deputy Justices during the vacation period and during the illness of the permanent Justices as formerly. We do not expect, however, to save the whole sum of £3,600, for the salaries of the two Assistant Justices (£1,600) are not included in this Vote; but they will be a charge on the Central Fund. At the same time it will be seen that a very substantial saving is anticipated. The travelling expenses of the two Assistant Justices will, it is believed, be considerably lower than the expenses incurred by Deputies under the system which has heretofore obtained and in consequence we are budgeting for some £1,200 less under this head for the coming year; you will see that in item B, page 121. The provision for the travelling and subsistence allowances of the permanent Justices has also been substantially decreased by the sum of £1,000. The decreased provision is accounted for by the fact that the commuted allowances payable to Justices were revised last year and the increases in the allowances payable did not prove to be as high as had been anticipated.
Deputies will be interested to learn that although the jurisdiction of the District Court is far greater than the jurisdiction of the old Petty Sessions Court and the office business consequently much heavier, the cost of running the system has been reduced rather than increased apart from the fall in bonus. It will be observed that the total salaries of District Court clerks outside the Dublin Metropolitan area amount at present to £29,715, covering 155 District Court clerks, an average salary of about £4 a week per clerk. This is an inclusive figure, there being no separate cost of living bonus in these cases. The actual salaries of the individual clerks vary, of course, very much: there are one or two who have a net salary of from £7 to £8 a week after paying expenses (these are whole-time clerks serving half a dozen courts each or serving very important courts such as Limerick City), while at the other end of the scale there are clerks on a £1 a week serving small courts in remote country places who need not devote more than one day a week or even less to their duties. Under Section 62 of the Court Officers Act, 1926, there is power to establish as pensionable Civil Servants such of these clerks as are whole-time, but up to the present this has been done in only one case. Such other clerks as are clearly whole-time and are giving satisfaction will be established in due course.
