Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for giving me the opportunity to make a few concluding remarks. I reiterate that I and my party support the Bill and the referendum and will be encouraging people to support it. I agree with the Minister that the public should not view this as a technical piece of legislation because it will impact on people every single day of the week. I said in my contribution on Second Stage that justice delayed is justice denied - a belief we all subscribe to. Hopefully, this will feed into a reform of the courts system which will deliver speedier processes.

I warned, as did others, that we must look at the systems within our Courts Service in terms of resourcing. It is an issue every day of the week and we are all aware of it. We hear anecdotally of cases which do not commence when they are scheduled to for very fairly basic reasons such as members of An Garda Síochána not being able to turn up because they are not rostered to turn up and court support staff like stenographers not being available. There is a significant amount of resourcing that must be looked at and that is something we must keep in the back of our minds. Putting the structural reforms on the Statute Book is obviously step one in the process, but it must feed down into the day-to-day management and operation of the courts. From our perspective, we welcome anything that will give court users greater service and satisfaction derived from getting a timelier service. I am glad to put that on the record again.

See this speech in context