Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 30 Mar 1993

Vol. 428 No. 5

Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Provision of Technology for Courts.

Michael McDowell

Ceist:

14 Mr. M. McDowell asked the Minister for Justice if, in respect of each District Court district, Circuit Court area and the High Court, she will give details of the amount that has been spent in each of the last five years on the provision of information technology, including word-processing equipment; whether she has satisfied herself that the court service generally has been given adequate resources to acquire modern information technology and equipment to meet the demands of management and to enable the courts service to be modernised and developed so as to provide a reasonable service to the public.

Mr. O'Dea

Deputy McDowell's question is very detailed, the detailed information sought in the question about individual court districts and areas is not available from central records and could be compiled only by the reallocation of scarce staff resources from other, more important tasks, which would not be warranted.

However, I can inform the House that the expenditure on the purchase, rental and maintenance of computer equipment, software and related items for all courts in each of the last five years was as follows: 1988, £163,628; 1989, £263,611; 1990, £220,415; 1991, £157,595; 1992, £191,704.

Computerisation of court offices is vital to a modern and efficient court service. While it is true that financial constraints have limited funds available for the purpose in the past, I am pleased to inform the House that I have secured a large increase in the moneys to be spent on information technology in the courts this year. The sum involved is £304,000, and this represents an increase of almost 60 per cent on last year's figure. This money will be used to purchase equipment and suitable software and also to replace outdated equipment in the courts.

A major computer training programme for courts personnel is just concluding and it is hoped that this will ensure that computer systems installed in court offices are used to their full potential.

In the past few years considerable progress has been made in the computerisation of the work of the District, Circuit and High Courts. I am committed to using the resources available to me to ensure the expansion of computerisation of the various court offices in 1993.

Mr. M. McDowell

Does the Minister know that at present all High Court orders, for instance, are issued in handwriting, which involves huge delays and means that people are not able to use precedents, which would be so much easier if there were access to technology such as wordprocessors? What recent progress has been made in putting the judgments of the superior courts on to a computer base and has that effected a speeding up of judgments? Would the Minister also indicate whether it is proposed to give any assistance to judges to tighten up their judgments and so on and whether he is satisfied with the current arrangements?

Mr. O'Dea

I might outline for Deputy McDowell what happened recently. Among the measures adopted is the computerisation of the central office of the High Court which is now at the testing stage. The introduction of a case tracking system for Circuit Court offices has been installed in three offices to date and is under evaluation in others. A family law accounts package has been made available to the Dublin Metropolitan District Court Family Law Office and an automatic office system to provide post-court documents, such as fines, notices and warrants is being introduced in Dundalk, Galway, Killarney, Kilkenny, Listowel, Monaghan, Naas, Nenagh, Portlaoise, Trim, Tralee, Tullamore and Waterford District Court offices. The networking of all local probate offices to the central office in the Four Courts is almost complete. Work on replacing the computer system in the Metropolitan District Court and Limerick District Court is under way.

In relation to the Deputy's question about assistance to judges — this may not be strictly relevant to this question — we are taking steps to provide some research assistance to judges. In relation to secretarial assistance, I am prepared to examine that position. We will be talking to a number of people about it and I will communicate with the Deputy on that matter.

Miss Harney

Would the Minister of State agree that this area is rather chaotic at present, for example, in that all the listings are carried out manually? While we are all good at telling outside interests how they should conduct their businesses more efficiently would he agree that we need to ensure that the courts are operated and managed more efficiently? Furthermore, would he agree that if basic computers were made available to all courts, including the District Court listings could be undertaken by computer and that cases that could be settled earlier and could be weeded out? Would he agree that we could log developments in cases, so that there would not be the need for witnesses, sometimes from abroad, to sit around for days without a precise idea when their case might be reached?

Would the Minister of State agree that the figure he announced earlier, less than £1 million over five or six years, is grossly inadequate since it took more than £40 million to computerise part of the Department of Health approximately ten years ago? Therefore, £1 million for work on our courts is grossly inadequate; we need to do much more. For example, Naas Court is only now getting a word processor. Computerisation would be cost-efficient because the most expensive way of doing anything nowadays is manually and also the most inefficient.

Mr. O'Dea

Of course I agree that improvements need to be made. I should say it is not a figure of £1 million once off. As I indicated earlier, we have been spending money on this over the years. For example, we increased the allocation this year by 60 per cent, which I do not think too bad in straitened financial times. We intend to continue doing so. However, I might point out to Deputy Harney that computer consultants were commissioned in 1992 to prepare a technical plan for the extension of computerised office information systems in all branches of the courts. I will be implementing that plan as quickly as possible. I am also monitoring developments in courts in other jurisdictions with a view to ensuring that the best possible computer facilities are made available to our courts. For the benefit of the House I will outline the court offices which have access to information technology. The High Court offices concerned include the central office, the Wards of Court office, the office of the Official Assignee in Bankruptcy, the Examiners Office, the Probate Office, the office of the General Solicitor for Wards of Court. In Circuit Court offices all but three have word processing equipment and the remainder will be equipped later this year.

Miss Harney

I thought the Minister said he could not give us that information.

Mr. O'Dea

In the District Court computers have been supplied in a number of cases. In addition, personal computers have been supplied to the court stenographers which should improve the earlier production of transcripts. Computer facilities have also been provided in the Judges' Library. We will move as quickly as possible.