Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak to this important legislation. I can assure the Minister of State and the Government that Fianna Fáil will be supporting it.

It is important to point out that prior to the Court of Appeal being established in October 2014, litigants had to wait approximately four years for their appeals to be heard in the Supreme Court. That was an unconscionable delay for people who were entitled to have an appeal heard promptly and yet they had to wait four years. The purpose of establishing a court of appeal was to ensure the process of appeals could be determined much more quickly.

The Court of Appeal has been effective in seeking to achieve that object. In fact, on the criminal side of the Court of Appeal, an appeal will be heard within this year if the appeal is put in now. However, where there is a significant backlog is in respect of civil appeals before the Court of Appeal. At present, the earliest date for hearing an appeal of a civil action to the Court of Appeal is May 2021, which is in effect a wait of just over two years.

It makes sense that we try to add more resources to the Court of Appeal. At present, there are ten judges on the court. Under the legislation we will have six more, which will bring up the number to 16 judges. As has been stated by the Minister of State, the effect of that is that we will be able to have two divisions of the Civil Court of Appeal hearing cases and we will be able to have three judges in the Criminal Court of Appeal hearing criminal appeals.

The legislation also underlines another very important point that we and the Government will have to deal with in due course, that is, the resourcing of the Judiciary. We have 40 High Court judges at present. It is not enough. We need more High Court judges involved. If one talks to any litigant waiting to get their case on in the High Court, it is the case in civil actions, unfortunately, that many of them will not get on the first time their case is listed for hearing. They will not get on the second time their case is listed for hearing and, if they are lucky, they may get on on the third occasion. The reason there is such a delay is because of the lack of judges being available.

I sometimes compare the resources Members of this House have with Members of the Judiciary. Deputies have the entitlement, appropriately, to hire two people, and they need that. A Minister can hire up to seven people. A person will probably need that as a Minister although Ministers have the Department behind them with all the hundreds of people who work within it. A High Court judge is lucky if they can get one judicial researcher, and he or she has to do everything for the judge.

When we think about the responsibilities that fall on High Court judges, they have to listen to all the evidence in the cases and then go off after the case is ended and produce a considered and correct High Court judgment, and they have to get it right. The reason they have to get it right is because Ireland is a common law system and the system of law in this country depends to a large extent on judge-made law. Huge amounts of law go through this House but every item of legislation we put through this House inevitably ends up before the courts where a judge is required to interpret it and give written decisions in respect of it.

We need to look at the level of resources we will allocate to the Judiciary. It is an important limb of Government. There are three limbs of government in this country, the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary, and it is very much the case that the one that is resourced the least is the Judiciary. That is something the Minister needs to examine.

In looking at the very good work the Court of Appeal has done, we have to go to the Courts Service annual report. The report for 2017 was published last year. The Minister has referred to some of the statistics within it, but reading the report shows that a considerable amount of work and appeals have been completed by the Court of Appeal. It may be the case that because of the Court of Appeal and its efficiency, more appeals are being taken than would have been the case had there been only the Supreme Court. It is certainly the case that in respect of interlocutory matters, appeals are being taken more frequently than would have been the case prior to the establishment of the Court of Appeal.

I have said repeatedly that we need to recognise that the resourcing of the Court of Appeal is not about the convenience of judges or the convenience of lawyers. It is to enable citizens who come before our courts to get justice before the courts. If there is not a facility or a capacity within the court system to deal with actions which people bring before the courts, justice is not being properly served.

This legislation is only about the Court of Appeal. We are increasing the number of judges from ten to 16. As I have said previously, we need to look at other courts, particularly the High Court. At present, we have 40 High Court judges, but when we look at the number of judges per capitain Ireland, we can see that we are in a very low position. I am aware that research was done in respect of 2015 and it showed that Ireland was 77th out of 94 countries in terms of the number of judges we had per capita.

At that stage the average in Council of Europe countries was 21 judges per 100,000 people, but in Ireland there were only three per 100,000 people. In Norway the number was 11 per 100,000 people, while in Portugal it was 19 per 100,000 people.

The Government must consider the further resourcing of not just the High Court but also the Circuit Court and the District Court. As I said, this is not about the convenience of lawyers but about individuals being able to access the courts. If more judges and resources are put into the system, going to court will not be so stressful. People could go to court, have their case heard and disposed of quickly and then have an appeal dealt with. It should not be the case that it takes years for a person to gain access to justice.

I also believe the inevitable delay and the prolonging of a court case have the effect of increasing the cost. If a person can have a case dealt with quickly, there will be more competition and the cost will decline.

I welcome the legislation which Fianna Fáil will support, but greater resources are needed in the Court of Appeal. However, the Government must also consider providing more resources for other aspects of the Judiciary. Today the justice committee discussed the Estimate for the justice Vote with the Minister, Deputy Flanagan. It was outlined that the Estimate for the judicial council was €250,000 next year. That will not be sufficient for a statutory body that is proposing to deal with the training of judges and disciplinary matters. In addition, judges will be asked to produce guidelines not only in respect of personal injuries but also criminal matters. The Judiciary must no longer be treated as the Cinderella in the three limbs of government. It requires further resources. For the sake of citizens, we should all seek further resources for it.

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