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SUPREME COURT CHIEF Justice Susan Denham today pleaded with Government not to impose any further cuts on the courts budget, warning that they would inflict harm on the Irish courts system.
Speaking at the launch of the Courts Services Annual Report, Denham predicted that any further cuts in staff or resources would do “great and lasting damage” to the courts system.
She noted that gross state funding for the Service had dropped by 25% since 2008, and that the net cost to the State of running Irish courts had gone down by 42% in the same period.
“Ireland’s courts are amongst the least costly in all the countries of the Council of Europe,” she claimed.
The Irish Courts Service has lost 157 staff members in the last five years, said a spokesman, a cut of 14.5% which has “put a strain on our ability to do our job.”
[image src="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2014/07/90296345-145x145.jpg" width="145" height="145" wp-size="size-thumbnail" credit-source="Laura%20Hutton%2FPhotocall%20Ireland" caption="The%20Four%20Courts%2C%20in%20Dublin%2C%20home%20of%20the%20Supreme%20Court%20and%20High%20Court" wp-id="wp-image-1587285" class="alignnone" /end]
Despite this, however, the Annual Report notes improved efficiencies and shortened waiting times in most categories.
The Supreme Court, for example, dealt with 23% more appeals in 2013, and the Court of Criminal Appeals disposed of 41% more cases.
A large part of this increased productivity came from traditional holiday time, well as evenings and weekends, being given over to extra sittings across the Irish courts system.
Justice Denham also welcomed the establishment of the new Court of Appeal with last year’s referendum, which will further cut waiting times and reduced backlogs when it gets up and running by the end of 2014.
Speaking to the media after the event, Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald emphasised the investment the government had made in the new court, in light of Denham’s warning about further cuts.
The government has shown its commitment to reform in the justice area.[The new Court of Appeal] is the biggest reform since the foundation of the state, and we’ve just put that through and given the funding for it.
Some €2 million in savings were made by the Courts Service in the last year, according to the Annual Report.
This was achieved by consolidating and amalgamating court offices throughout the country (although not in Dublin), as well as a 40% drop in travel and subsistence costs for judges in recent years.
Justice Denham issued the following warning, however:
Any further or continued subtraction of monies and staff from the Courts Service budget will cause a great and lasting damage to our courts system.
Scroll down to read the 2013 Annual Report of the Irish Courts Services in full.
Additional reporting by Christina Finn.
Read: The High Court has two new judges, both women>
http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2014/07/courts-service-annual-report-2013.pdf
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How about proper sentencing so as to reduce repeat offenders. Win-win for society, Gardai, & Judges.
She probably thinks we’re all too stupid to notice that.
This woman, and her cohort of clowns live in ivory towers, and receive obscene salaries!
Some cheek on her.
‘Obscene salaries’ Literally every judge in the HC and SC has taken a pay cut of about 90% when they join the bench..
Judges and barristers in this country are some of the highest paid in the world and that’s on top of their expenses. Does she think that she is going to get sympathy from a population struggling to survive? Get a grip woman.
T Beckett
Yes clowns – dressed as “court jesters” “acting” out in court corporation buildings- and people believe its all real- all based on law of the sea and nothing to do with the once admired Justice System.
Now its the Just Us dept.
Can’t cope with appropriate sentencing either, so cry me a river.
Have to agree with Scarr, criminal courts are Farcical & nobody in power or in a justice capacity doing anything to encourage change.. If any sector needs cleaning up with fresh faces it’s this one..
Chief Justice Susan Denham and Prof. Patricia Casey should hold hands and jump in to the Liffey.
Your judiciary in the lower courts is a disgrace, Susan.
Train them.
Aren’t these the same judges who have their own PA library and a dozen other things that harp back to Victorian times, all paid for by the tax payer?
Our court system is already abysmal, and yet they are still talking cutbacks? People talking about recovery need to have their head checked. Irish society is crumbling away and it won’t be long before it is every man and woman for themselves.
And yet the country is still borrowing money to survive and run its day to day business. So the choices are further expenditure cuts, more taxation or a combination of the two. Make up your mind. We can’t have out cake an eat it. The Justice system in Ireland is underfunded and always has been.
Countries *always* borrow money to survive and run their day to day businesses, that’s how it’s done. The last time one got to the point where they didn’t have to (when the US under Clinton was within reach of eliminating their national debt), the economists went a little nuts trying to pursuade the US government not to do so lest they topple the world economy:
Ms Justice Susan Denham is a modern, learned, and above all practical woman. If she says that the system cannot cope with further reductions, then I take her word for it. Comments about sentencing etc., are for a different thread. In case anyone should be in doubt about my views: I have long been appalled by the fact that crimes against property (a hangover from earlier times) attract far more severe sentences than crimes against the person. It is my view that assault, murder, rape etc., should attract heavy, exemplary and – hopefully – deterrent sentences in order to reflect societies’ views on such crimes. I am not saying that fraud and theft should go unpunished, merely that there are far worse crimes.
Sentencing directly impacts on the rest of the court system. If someone with 60 odd previous convictions comes before the court for conviction number 61, then obviously we can reduce the pressure on the court system by giving a lengthy jail sentence on conviction number 20, thereby saving another 40 scheduled court hearings!
So sentencing is directly related to pressure for resources in the courts service.
It’s simply that way because that’s the way people want it.. Someone who’s 50000 euro worth of stuff feels considerably more irate than someone who has been assaulted and that’s the truth
Sheik Yahbouti
It is my view that assault, murder, rape etc., should attract heavy, exemplary and – hopefully – deterrent sentences in order to reflect societies’ views on such crimes. ”
That would be true except that in court service users are not living breathing sovereign beings but souls lost to the sea. We are worthless persons-
Property etc has more value and this is vital in a corporation court.
Do away with the legal aid system and have a solicitor employed in each court to represent those who need it. One salary instead of a licence to print money for the other vultures
Yes, because all it takes is one guy to handle the workload of an entire court.
Representation has to actually be effective – one overloaded worker wouldn’t be anything more than a fig leaf.
It’s works in the US, besides most day to day court activities are adjournments. Plus one state solicitor will dispose of cases quickly instead of putting things back repeatedly for more pay days
US has a legal aid system considerably more extensive than Ireland, they actually cover certain civil claims.. So I don’t know what you’re talking about
Court appointed representation yes, except that’s the persons job employed by the state, they are not on a case by case basis, they get a salary
Killjoy ; you can’t compare the U.S criminal system to Ireland’s because the U.S have privately run prisons …i.e. they can lock people up and if there is more room needed then more profit for private individuals ….
Could always decriminalise drug use & cut courts’ budgets since they waste so much time & money on what is in effect a victimless, moral crime.
Drugs are not victimless, no matter be it cannabis or ecstasy. For one they are the mainstay income of organised criminal gangs. Secondly, like any other addiction, when people’s life’s breakdown because of a drug addiction they make victims out of everyone around them.
You can eliminate the first point by decriminalising drugs, but the second point will always leave victims.
Alcohol is a drug that visits mayhem on public streets, in private homes, wrecks families, destroys lives, creates carnage on public highways and fills up EDs at weekends.
I wouldn’t disagree with you at all. In fact I’d say euro for euro, alcohol probably costs the state more money than some (maybe most?) drugs. And I think most people can say they know someone who’s alcohol addiction has impacted in them.
Court can be in the town hall with ikea furniture, get over the egos.
Plenty of courts in Ireland are held in town halls with furniture as old as the Irish State. It’s easy to criticise the court systems from a distance. Most people commenting here have never been in a court and may change their opinion if they were before a sitting judge.
We hold sittings in the back of a pub.
We hold sittings in the back of a pub.”
That is where most decisions are actually made.
Don’t forget the brown envelopes.!
The solicitors solicit business for the court.
Barristers rehearse together in the back room, dress up like jesters and play to the court audience.
Six new judges were appointed yesterday and I think two others and this dame in her ivory victorian tower is complaining about cutbacks and backlogs. Why not work some of their lenthy summer holiday to clear the backlogs.
Do you think they don’t work during the holidays?
Just another eejit who hasn’t a clue.
All barristers and judges work during the summer, you would need an estimated extra 70 judges, 500 barristers and 1000 solicitors working if the courts were open during the summer to cope with the extra workloads
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