Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On subhead A2.6, as the Minister of State correctly said, there are currently two courts in the existing building. That does not take into account all the spare space that is within the building. There is enough space, in my opinion, for at least three extra courtrooms in the existing premises. There was a review which, I believe, is outdated for a number of reasons, including, most importantly, the programme for Government commitment to town centres. As the Minister of State said, we are moving towards a solution. However, the solution might be a bad solution. There needs to be joined-up thinking because this involves the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Department of Justice, and there are a number of other factors.

Currently, similar to what was indicated by the Chair, for certain court trials in Kerry, witnesses, gardaí, defendants and their families are all leaving the county and going to Limerick court. That is completely unacceptable. There is an opportunity now. There is a true fork in the road. With some of the other developments, such as ICT, there is less need for prisoners to come to court. Many of the remands are being done remotely from the jails. We need to look at this but there needs to be joined-up thinking. I will not tell the buildings committee of the Courts Service, the members of which are all capable of making up their own minds, but their job is to provide an effective courthouse for the county of Kerry. They do not have to factor in the overall benefit, not only to the town centre of Tralee but to the county of Kerry. That is my job. What they should be doing is looking at that in particular.

There is a building across the road, the old Kerry Protestant Hall, which could be for sale. It was brought up at the Courts Service buildings committee that that building could be available for in the region of €450,000, which, I suppose, might be going up. There was a €5.2 million underspend last year. The Minister of State and the Government are the ones who can have the joined-up thinking, talk to officials in Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, and talk to the architect who states there should be a review of this building carried out by a grade 1 heritage architect. It was constructed in 1830 or 1840 from limestone in The Green, the town park in Tralee, by a 17-year-old apprentice architect, I understand, who was working with a very famous architect at the time. It is central to the history and the heritage of the town.

We must keep the court service in the town for a number of other economic reasons that will not be considered by the Courts Service buildings committee, no doubt a group of very eminent and distinguished people. We can do something that would be beneficial. The common good of the town of Tralee demands it. These are not requests. These are demands that something proper be done. If it is a simple box-ticking exercise by the Courts Service, no doubt it will think there is a brownfield site at the other end of town it should opt for, but there will be no additional benefit to the town centre arising out of the grant of the Kerry Group to the townspeople of Tralee for the old urban district council. That shows how long ago that was donated. With the capital carryover, there is a historic opportunity to do something, not thinking for the next ten or 20 years but for the next 70 or 80 years, to improve a town centre which has been hampered by out-of-town shopping centres etc.

We need to develop town centres. There needs to be extra footfall. As the studies, particularly in England, have shown, there must be increased jobs and an increase not only in the people living but in the people working in the town centre. To generate an additional 100 people working in the town centre and people coming in on juries, etc., there has to be imagination and flexibility. It is not good enough for the Courts Service to come back and say this does not suit it. There has to be a fresh cross-departmental look at this before the wrong solution is made for Tralee courthouse.

There are, of course, other smaller courthouses, such as Castleisland and Killorglin, that were closed. The local authority provided a courthouse in Castleisland, which is a town of 2,000 people. It and other courthouses were closed. Those decisions should be reviewed as well because they took more footfall away from those town centres. I hope the Government will take that into consideration and listen to the overwhelming demand of the people of Tralee for a change in mindset about it.