Mr. Deaglán Ó Briain:

There is a mix of issues involved, including resources and making sure the appropriate equipment is available in the courts. Deputy Kenny mentioned Covid and our colleagues in the Courts Service report that that has had an impact on encouraging the use of remote facilities. They report that the courts are particularly happy to do so in relation to ex parteapplications. After that it is very much in the hands of the court whether it will agree that evidence can be given remotely in particular cases.

I will briefly comment on the Deputy's question about having someone present to support the victim. That is one of the objectives of the reform of our grant schemes, to make sure the court accompaniment services we fund are available throughout the State. We put extra money into grants for NGOs and we are currently mapping the applications we have to identify the geographical areas and categories of victims where the service is not available, in order that we can open negotiations bilaterally with some of our NGO colleagues to address those gaps.