Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

With the national development plan to be launched on Monday, it strikes me that it would be impossible to have a capital plan if the Courts Service has not done the base assessment of the optimum. The service has spent €500 million in its first 20 years of its existence. Is that the optimum use of that sum? Will we continue on that basis until the overall analysis has been done of the right number, scale and location of court systems to meet the growing population and disposition of population in the Republic for the next 30 or 40 years? Should that work not be the first task of the Courts Service?