THERE WILL be further court closures in 2012 in many rural towns as the Courts Service struggles to maintain services,
The Courts Service is merging district and circuit court offices in a number of regional centres. This has already happened in Naas, Ennis and Monaghan, and will shortly take place in Carlow, Portlaoise, Waterford, Carrick-on-Shannon and Galway.
Chief executive of the Courts Service Brendan Ryan acknowledged that 25 offices outside Dublin would be combined by 2014, which would cause some inconvenience.
He said, however, there had been huge investment in court buildings over the past 10 years and it was important that these were fully utilised.
This meant drawing the work of some of the lesser-used courts into bigger centres, Mr Ryan added. The combination of district and circuit court offices meant that all the work of the staff in the previously separate offices would be pooled.
A senior staff member would become the combined office manager. It would also mean that the work of county registrars, who previously were in charge of Circuit Court offices, could change and they could assume more quasi-judicial functions.
"They are all legally qualified and worked in private practice," Mr Ryan told The Irish Times. "We just need to make sure there is a legal basis for any new functions they take on. We hope to have a courts Bill next year that will provide for that."
He said the Courts Service had given a commitment that as far as possible, court sittings would not be affected by the cutbacks.
“In 2009 we had 1,081 staff. By the end of 2012 it will be 930. It will be 870 by 2015. We were ahead of the curve for Croke Park because we set up a taskforce of senior managers in 2009 and had a report from them on what needed to be done. It will be a challenge. We are losing 60 people in the next two months and they contain a lot of institutional wisdom.
“But we will have an office manual online so that everyone can access this knowledge. The staff were marvellous. After February, hopefully, there won’t be a sudden outflow of people.
“We have to revise everything we do and look at all processes and procedures. We have to examine what we are doing, ask do we need to do it, and if so, how can we best do it in the future.”
Asked what the Courts Service could do about frequent adjournments in the courts and the problems this caused for litigants, witnesses and the victims of crime, Mr Ryan said the service could only do a limited amount relating to the listing of cases and the administration of justice. This was because its function was to support the judiciary in its independent role to include the listing of cases.
However, two committees, one for the District Court and one for the Circuit Court, with essentially the same membership apart from their judicial chairs, were examining ways of improving the system. They would report to the Chief Justice and the Minister for Justice. Mr Ryan said a comprehensive report on the criminal jurisdiction of the criminal court had been drawn up by a working group chaired by Mr Justice Nial Fennelly in 2003 and provided a basis for the work of these committees.