Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

We need to recapture that issue in a way that, as I said, has been off the agenda since the former Chief Justice's report on this in 2000. I do not wish to spend any more time on it. The net issue we must deal with is the need for a common database. I am impressed by the argument put forward by Deputy Jim O'Keeffe that this is something that should not be ad hoc and that one should not take an approach that says "right lads, you are the professionals and if, by chance, you agree it and can input it into it and sure we will even give you a few bob to do the technology for it". Having a look at what are common practices and similar cases, what colleague judges have decided in these matters and what body of sentences has been built up should be part incrementally over time of the service provided by the Courts Service to the Judiciary in a modern professional democracy. If we are not going to accept it in this legislation, we will accept a model like this very shortly as a proper function of the Courts Service, although it may not be as ambitious a model ab initio.

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