Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

An important aspect of the modernisation programme that must be taken on board is access to translators. Representatives of different groups have appeared before our committee, and before the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, and have spoken about the difficulty with access to justice because of a lack of translation services. These services can be ad hoc. My experience in using translators is that sometimes they can be excellent, while at other times they can be deeply unprofessional. There is no overarching mechanism to regulate this area. This point is a bit outside the content of the Estimates, but any courts modernisation programme must ensure and improve access to translators. Is there anything in these Estimates that we can use to increase and improve access to translation services?

When it comes to the courts, as well, I am conscious of the number of judges we have and ultimately, the lack of judges. The European average of judges per capitais about 20 judges per 100,000 of the population. In Ireland, the equivalent figure is 3.3 judges per 100,000 people. I was talking to one barrister who practises in criminal law who had a bail hearing in January this year and the trial is scheduled for March 2024. There is a huge backlog. The impact of Covid-19 is contributing to this but so is a lack of judges. This is the case at all levels of the judicial system. The President of the High Court asked for an additional 17 judges and we were able to give her five more. Equally, the District Court and the Circuit Court have as much of a demand for the allocation of more judges. The addition of judges with no fixed circuit or district would mean they could move around and go to where the backlogs are to help us to be more flexible. I am aware that I cannot fully appreciate if that is possible under the current structures, but something like that is desperately needed to ensure that someone will not be waiting for two and a half years for a trial. That type of situation impacts on the accused and on the victim. I thank the Minister.