Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have very well qualified county registrars around the country. A number of them have made the case that they do not have enough work to do, which is interesting in the context of the work and the extensive powers that they have. It is not envisaged that, in the short term, this will require the appointment of replacement county registrars. It is envisaged in the short term that some of the general administrative work of county registrars will be taken over by the existing county registrars and the appointees will operate as specialist judges.

It is also envisaged that the specialist circuit judge will, when the assisted decision making capacity Bill is enacted - we hope to publish it fairly early in the new year; it will result in fundamental reforms of the wards of court structure and a complete change of law in this area to modernise our laws - the Circuit Court will have a jurisdiction under it. We would envisage that specialist judges will also absume some jurisdiction under that Bill as well.

The purpose of this is to ensure we have a cohort of judges who are immediately available to deal with any of the debt resolution mechanisms that have to come before them, that they are approved rapidly where approval is appropriate and that, where there is a need for court applications, they are readily made without undue delay. It would defeat the purpose of the Bill if the court aspect of this in the context of what are primarily non-judicial resolution mechanisms created undue delay in them becoming operational. This is designed to ensure that does not occur and that we do not impose an additional burden on the existing Circuit Court Judiciary to the detriment of dealing with other areas of law.

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