Mr. Brendan Ryan:

We operate a very transparent system when it comes to investment in and divestment of court venues. Where a venue is being considered for closure, all interested parties are consulted as part of the detailed assessment. Where parties are consulted, they are provided with full details of the assessment undertaken by the Courts Service of the proposal in question. The views expressed by those consulted form part of a detailed assessment provided for the building committee of the Courts Service. If the committee proposes to recommend to the Courts Service board the closure of a particular venue, all those previously consulted are informed of this proposal and allowed to make a submission directly to the board. As I said, it is an open and transparent system.

On the Dublin venues to which the Deputy referred, we took the view that their closure was warranted from a Courts Service perspective. I have mentioned that we have had severe reductions in funding and a 16% reduction in staff numbers. There are challenges in maintaining sittings on a daily basis. The Courts Service and its staff should be applauded in that, despite all the cutbacks made in the past six years, the fact that judicial numbers have increased by 8% or so and the 10% rise in the number of sitting days, no scheduled court sitting has been cancelled. However, in the central Dublin area, we considered it would be more efficient to centralise all of our business within the Criminal Courts of Justice and the Four Courts area.