James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will move to Vote 22, which is the Courts Service. We have taken and dealt with enough queries under the previous Vote. Vote 22 has four subheads, A1 to A4, and it is on page C7 of the secretariat briefing documents and on pages 31 to 45 of the Department's briefing notes. Deputy Daly is indicating on this Vote and if other members wish to indicate they should make themselves known. I will start with a few questions of my own before I move to Deputy Daly.

I note the Courts Service spend. Capital works are inevitably down because of Covid etc. because it has not been possible to perform capital works. There is an allocation for the Courts Service and it is up in every other regard. I have a couple of questions on that, primarily with regard to the Covid experience. Others have already referred to the adoption of IT in order to keep the courts meeting, moving and hearing cases and different matters. There has been some allocation of funding to the Courts Service to enable that remote adoption. The feedback is that it has been inconsistent and has been dependent from one court to the next, not even necessarily at the same level. For example, one District Court might be hearing remote hearings while another circuit court up the road is not and so on. It might depend on individual judges or perhaps it is a Courts Service decision but I am not sure. It would be beneficial if a more uniform approach could be adopted because there are issues with access to justice arising whereby one county could be carrying out remote hearings whereas the county next door is on halt for six or 12 months or whatever.

In a similar vein, there is feedback from the Bar Council and others that the Covid safety standards, which should be paramount in the supports given to the Courts Service, are not always being met. Again, there is a lack of uniformity in that certain court buildings and courthouses are leading the way in how safety measures and social distancing are carried out. Those that are meeting physically are leading the way in how they are laid out and managed, whereas others leave something to be desired to put it mildly. I do not know if any inspections or reports have been conducted by the Courts Service in that regard. I suggest it might be useful if there were. The Minister might comment on those matters.

This point came in under the Garda but I left this question under the Courts Service because it relates to courts. The witness allocation under Vote 20 was level. I would have thought witness expenses would be significantly down considering that there have been so few physical hearings. I was surprised by that.

The Minister might comment on the capital works programme, which is down for obvious reasons. She might tell us where that is and where it is expected to pick up when matters resume.