Brendan Kenneally (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Courts and Court Officers Bill. I realise the legislation largely concerns the operation of the new Criminal Court complex at the Phoenix Park. I remember driving by it some 12 months ago, not realising at the time what it was. It is a magnificent structure and it is very sensible to locate the five different courts in the one complex because this streamlines the operation of criminal trials in Dublin. I was delighted to hear the Minister state the complex is coming in ahead of both budget and time, and will be ready in November. Now that it is out of the way perhaps the Minister might turn his attention to providing the much needed expansion of the courthouse in Waterford which is totally inadequate for a city of that size and the south-east region.

I note that administrative structures are changing and concern the entire operation of criminal proceedings in Dublin. We welcome that because we would all like to see any measure that will cut costs and perhaps lead to a quicker throughput of trials. One item surprised me a little. I did not realise until I looked at the Bill that there are two offices for the High Court, namely, the High Court office and the office of the President of the High Court. There are not two Supreme Court offices, to include one for the President of the Supreme Court. I wonder why there should be two offices for the High Court. Perhaps they could be combined.

Part 2 of the Bill deals with temporary custody and I wish to comment on that. I support the efforts that are being made to try to streamline the entire procedure and transfer as much as possible of this part of the criminal justice procedure to the Prison Service to operate. I hope that as a result gardaí will be freed up from the escort duties they have been doing to do more important business and that the prison officers can get on with what they do. I have one concern which is not referred to in the Bill. It concerns people waiting to go into custody. I refer to a criminal case, perhaps a routine low profile criminal case, which is heard somewhere in the country, for example in a rural part of counties Waterford, Kerry or Cork. My understanding is that if such a case is ongoing - for whatever reason some of these cases can go on for several weeks - for the duration there must be a number of prison officers on stand-by with a prison van to take the person in the case into custody if found guilty. If a number of people have to be located like that for a period of time obviously they must be put up in a local hotel, fed and given a daily allowance. It seems to be a very costly exercise. Yet in any of the courts around the country where criminal proceedings are taking place there will be a number of gardaí in the vicinity. It would make more sense, when the case is completed and the defendant is found guilty, for the gardaí to take that person into custody and bring him or her to the nearest barracks or holding cell available, call the Prison Service to collect the convicted person and bring him or her to the place of detention in question. That would be more logical and would save a certain amount of money. It cannot and will not operate in all cases. If there is a particularly contentious case with high profile criminals, for example, the one thing that must be done with those people as soon as they are found guilty is to get them to hell out of the place as quickly as possible. However, there are many low profile criminal cases happening all over the country where such circumstances do not pertain. Perhaps the way in which our resources are being used could be looked at in that regard.

The Bill seeks to combine various offices and I assume we can look forward to the combination of Circuit Court and District Court offices in the many towns and cities around the country. I have no problem with that because I am sure there is a great deal of work duplication going on at present while they operate separately. This, again, should speed up the criminal process. I have some concerns, however, regarding section 15 of the Bill which seems to give powers to the Courts Service to downgrade some of these offices. Does this mean, for example, that when an office is downgraded it would no longer be a combined District Court-Circuit Court office but might carry out only District Court business while the Circuit Court element would be centralised into one region? I do not know if that is what is envisaged but perhaps there is to be a move towards regional offices. The Minister might clarify this for us.

Section 15(2) gives me even more cause for concern. It states that the Courts Service can dissolve offices. In other words, it can shut down any offices around the country. I have a problem with this type of legislation, not only as it appears in this Bill but in general. Increasingly, we are moving matters away from Ministers and Departments, and from the Houses of the Oireachtas. We will be told afterwards if we ask any questions about this that the Minister has no responsibility in the area. That is a concern I have had for a number of years. We are continuing to push this kind of matter further and further away from those who are here to represent the people of the country. We are being downgraded, increasingly. I do not like this move away from the Minister and the Oireachtas, nor do I like it that, in effect, some bureaucrats can decide to dissolve offices while we have no say in the matter. Perhaps there is more behind this than I have knowledge of and the Minister might clarify this when he is summing up.

Section 19 surprised me somewhat too in what it states about the appointment of the manager of the new combined office. I thought that the county registrar, as the senior person in the Circuit Court office which is, in turn, the more senior of the two offices, would be appointed as the manager but according to the legislation this need not necessarily be the case. I would imagine it would lead to a certain amount of friction if a county registrar was not made manager and another person was put in over him or her. Perhaps there is good reason for this measure in some areas but I do not know it and again I ask the Minister to clarify the issue.

The country registrar also currently operates as sheriff, though not as the revenue sheriff, who is usually an appointed local solicitor. The repossession of goods or houses or whatever is within the remit of the country registrar, as sheriff, at present. What are the intentions in this regard? Will the function remain in the combined office with the county registrar as it currently is, or are there plans to change how it operates?

With these several comments and provisos I broadly welcome this legislation.

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