Mr. Micheál P. O'Higgins:

I do not have the total figure. Often, these matters would be cost neutral. For instance, the courts system earns money from court pleadings and filing charges. The more litigation there is, the more revenue comes into the central office from parties looking to get their pleadings filed. In addition, the State earns a sizeable income stream from taxation on the professional fees of lawyers operating in the system as well as value added tax on those fees. This is a point that we sought to make in our proposal to the Government, which thankfully the Government has accepted and decided to support. That proposal is on attracting in foreign investment and legal services - we call it the Brexit initiative - to prepare for the strong possibility that the United Kingdom will be leaving the European Union at the end of March.

I do not have the exact figure for the cost of running the courts, but we should not lose sight of the fact that many of these measures would be cost neutral or have a positive cost aspect. Some of the improvements and reforms in terms of adding to the number of judges and resourcing them properly would be self-financing. It is not all about a bad hit on the Exchequer. There are positive financial aspects to making these necessary reforms as well.