James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome that response and the acknowledgement from Government of the position. The statistics tell us that Ireland has 3.3 judges per 100,000 people, compared with an average of 21 judges per 100,000 people throughout the OECD and the EU. I know the Minister of State has acknowledged that in his response which I welcome. It strikes me that in terms of the moves in the recent years, such as the abolition of town councils by a previous Government and the moves away from subsidiarity and local representation, the moves away from judges per capitamean that decision-making and administration of justice, local government and even our administration of the powers over the people are being taken away, at every stage, from the people further back. We should not allow that to happen. It would be remiss of me not to mention Naas district, where one single judge presides over what is probably the busiest district in the country. Cork has four judges. Limerick has three judges and Dublin has multiple judges. However, Naas, which the numbers reflect as being one of the busiest districts in the commuter belt, if not the country, has a single judge presiding. I ask the Government to consider whether that needs to be tackled, perhaps with an additional judge for the Naas district.

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