Mr. Brendan Ryan:

This will resolve those issues, albeit obviously not overnight. On the 30 staff members, for instance, I have agreed to appoint six or seven additional staff members into the family law area in Dublin. Our proposal is that Dolphin House will revert to being a family law centre only in the interim, pending the building of the Hammond Lane site, while the Chancery courts in the Bridewell, with which the Senator may be familiar, will become the child care courts. We need seven staff to support the splitting of that business and of the 30-odd staff members for whom I have received funding I have allocated seven to Mr. Coyle, who is in charge of that area, to set up this business. The waiting times in respect of domestic violence in Dublin, which probably are the worst nationwide, are approximately 14 weeks and we hope to reduce that significantly once we start. The difficulty is we must now undertake some building work in the Chancery courts because the child care courts will go there and it is not really a suitable venue for child care but we will do our best in the intervening period. We must do some remedial work there and must transfer some of the present sittings up to the Criminal Courts of Justice, CCJ, and probably out to Blanchardstown. There is some work to be done in this regard, which will take a few months.

As for the Central Criminal Court, where the waiting time went out to 17 months, the President of the High Court decides on the allocation of judges for various business and he has indicated his immediate assignment of a fifth judge to Central Criminal Court work. The difficulty for me is I did not have a registrar to support this unless the President was willing to allow a civil court registrar move up from the Four Courts. Again in respect of additional staff, I have appointed a new registrar to the Central Criminal Court in order that it will be supported. The additional judge started in October and the President already has indicated the additional judge will remain in respect of the Central Criminal Court, where there will be five judges during 2016. This should really eat into the waiting times in the Central Criminal Court. The waiting time for the Special Criminal Court at present is approximately 19 months but as the Senator is aware, the Oireachtas has approved a second Special Criminal Court. A meeting was held in this regard last Friday and we anticipate the second Special Criminal Court will start sitting early in the new year. I anticipate this also will have a positive impact on the waiting times there.