Ms Angela Denning:

I thank the Chair and the members of the committee for the invitation. The Courts Service is responsible for the management and administration of the courts in Ireland. The Courts Service has a unique role supporting the third branch of Government. I report to a board, chaired by the Chief Justice, that is responsible for the determination of policy and for oversight of the implementation of that policy by me and my management team. The Courts Service was established 21 years ago. We inherited more than 240 court venues, many of which had fallen into serious disrepair. The functions of the board of the Courts Service include the designation of court venues. The Courts Services' building committee, which is a subcommittee of the board, has responsibility for the preparation and development of capital building and maintenance programmes and for establishing priorities in respect of the implementation of those programmes.

Our estate now comprises 103 courthouse venues, with 251 courtrooms. Since its establishment, the Courts Service has invested more than €500 million in courthouse buildings. The maintenance of court premises is generally provided by the OPW on a reactive basis, but funded by the Courts Service. Regular and planned maintenance of courthouse buildings on the scale required to keep the buildings in a good state of repair has not always been possible when limited funding was available. A survey of conditions in 60 venues was done in 2019 and 2020 and found that 83% of the buildings that were inspected are protected structures, with an average time since being built of 162 years. These findings set some of the context for our challenge.

While we always have ambitions to provide enhanced services, there is a limit to what can be achieved with the available resources and what constitutes value for money for the Exchequer. For instance, many of our District Court venues are only used once or twice a month because the court business of the districts does not require more sittings than currently provided. The locations of courthouses are, in the main, legacy decisions associated with historical factors. While these venues are extremely valuable to their locality, having these court buildings sitting idle for most of the year is not a good use of public resources. Outside Dublin, there is generally no issue with the sufficiency of courtrooms. In Dublin, in the short term, courtroom capacity will be a challenge that we expect will be alleviated by the development of a new and dedicated family law centre at Hammond Lane.

Work remains to be done in some of our older stock of buildings to facilitate access to services for physically disabled people. The question to be considered in retrofitting these venues is whether the usage of the building justifies the investment. Increased use of technology and remote court sittings during the Covid-19 pandemic has eased some of the challenges associated with travel to court buildings for vulnerable users, including those with physical disabilities. It is the policy and practice of the Courts Service that all newly-constructed and refurbished buildings should be fully accessible, provide for the needs of vulnerable witness and have dedicated victim support rooms. This includes heritage buildings, which otherwise may be exempt in some respects. The Courts Service values the historic significance of the many heritage buildings which it occupies nationwide. Where facilities require improvement, it has always been the preference of the Courts Service to refurbish and to extend an existing courthouse so that it can remain in court use in the future. Due to site or building constraints, however, it is not always possible to provide the full range of facilities on an existing site. In such cases, it is the policy of the Courts Service to hand over the building concerned to the local authority for alternative community use.

One of the pillars of reform in our modernisation programme is the provision of a modern estate and facilities, along with a rationalised estate, concentrating court sittings in fewer venues, the development of specialist centres and investment in modern facilities to support court users. It is our ambition to reduce the requirement to attend courthouses and offices through the use of improved digital services designed to best serve users. An estate strategy will be developed that will be underpinned by data. These data will include demographics, case loads, distances between courthouse and travel times. Future decisions about courthouses will be influenced by the national planning framework and spatial strategy and policy, and by policy on climate and the environment. Given the age of our estate, it will be a significant challenge to meet environmental targets. We have established a dedicated sustainability unit, which was recently expanded to face the challenge ahead.

Our estate strategy will be guided by the family court Bill that aims to provide regional dedicated courts and by our experience during the pandemic. For the last 18 months our aim was, and remains, to protect the health and well-being of employees, judges and court users while continuing to provide access to justice. We succeeded in providing a safe environment through the use of a robust Covid-19 safety management programme, while quickly adapting and maximising the number of court cases that we could progress within the provisions of the public health guidelines. Physical distancing requirements had an especially dramatic effect on our operating environment. The Courts Service has provided in-person and remote facilities throughout the pandemic, with a particular focus on prioritising urgent business and those who are vulnerable, such as victims of domestic abuse. We dramatically increased the use of video links to prisons and this has had a significant benefit across the justice system, as has the introduction of remote court sittings.

To meet future challenges and demands for new means of providing access to justice, we have commenced a €2.2 million investment in the installation of video technology to provide 103 video-enabled courtrooms by the end of the year. Throughout the pandemic, part of our strategy was to manage footfall in court buildings while also ensuring that justice was administered in public. Media outlets have been facilitated via priority access to the courtroom and the provision of links to observe remote court sittings without needing to leave their offices. Court reporters have been the eyes and ears of the public in our courts.

Juries are always a priority group in the courts system, and we prioritised their accommodation before and during the pandemic. We put arrangements in place, sometimes using external venues, to ensure that, to date, jurors have been kept safe - and they have told us that they felt safe - while providing their invaluable service to the State. In summary, the aim of the Courts Service in the years to come is to provide just, user-centric, simplified and timely access to justice. We intend to do this by maintaining the innovation and agility that we have demonstrated in the past 18 months, by collaborating with users and by keeping the needs and requirements of litigants at the centre of everything we do.