Mr. John Coyle:

Most, up to 90%, of criminal business is conducted in the District Court. Since 2000 we have used an internally designed and developed computer system, which records all details of criminal cases, including road traffic offences, from initiation. A criminal case is generally initiated in the District Court by way of summons or charge sheet. The charge sheet comes in from the Garda. The details of the charges etc. are entered in the system, scheduled for court, each order made by the court is recorded there as well as the final order, dismissed or prison sentence.

Most summons applications received from the Garda are received electronically on an interface between the Garda police using leading systems effectively, PULSE, system and the criminal case tracking system, CCTS. Applications for summons come in electronically. We do not have to enter the data within the courts system. It is automatically updated to our CCTS. The summonses are printed, issued and scheduled for court. The process is then basically the same as for charge sheets. The cases come before the court. The order is recorded. It may be adjourned or dealt with on the first day. There is a deficiency in that we would like to receive the charge sheets electronically from the Garda because that would save our staff inputting them. An enhancement to the system for summonses is on the agenda.

A separate system manages crime in the Circuit Court. It operates on the same principle, recording it from the time it comes into the Circuit, Central or Special Criminal Courts until it is disposed of in the courts.

On the civil side, we have a plethora of systems. There is a system for each office around the country. This is one of the casualties of the reduction in funding for the development of new systems. We have commenced the development of a cross-jurisdictional information system to cater for civil and family law business and components of that system are up and running, for example, in the Court of Appeal and in the Supreme Court. The challenge for us is to further enhance and develop that system to incorporate the transaction of ordinary civil business across all court jurisdictions. We require funding and additional resources for that. We are working on two further components of that system. One is debt collection on line, DCOL. A solicitor or lay litigant who wants to issue a civil summons can do it online. It is scheduled. That is approximately 75% developed and we await legislation to give legal effect to electronic filing and to replace the requirement for swearing affidavits by a statement of truth. We are looking forward to that legislation coming in because then we can proceed with the first component of our cross civil system.

We are also working on a new licensing system for the District and Circuit Courts. That is well advanced. It does not have the same legislative problems and we aim to implement it on a pilot basis with effect from next April.