Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Fáiltím go mór roimh an mBille seo agus tá súil agam go dtiocfaidh sé trí Thithe an Oireachtais gan mhoill. It would be very appropriate if there was not an inordinate delay in bringing this Bill through, because it is all about delay. In recent years, delay seems to be increasingly endemic in every system. Even in the remedies to deal with delay, there can be delays.

I raised a number of cases with the Ombudsman recently and this takes much longer than it did initially when the Office of the Ombudsman was set up. A person can go to the Ombudsman and say he or she wants to complain about a delay, but that in itself takes time. We need to deal with delay both in the administrative system and the judicial or legal system. I welcome the Bill, but I hope it will have the results it is intended to have.

The first thing in dealing with this issue of delays is to look at why it is happening and then deal with it. In reality, people should not have to go to an assessor and effectively take action against the State for delay. Unfortunately, in too many cases, one wishes one could do it every day of the week with so many parts of the State, including, if I might say so, the Department of Justice, which I find can be very slow in dealing with issues.

When it comes to the courts, however, it becomes even more important. It could be a family law case where people might need urgent action but they do not get that action because of delays in the court. They cannot get into the court or there are other delays. At times we see how it can take years to resolve family law cases.

We then have civil cases. Issues such as planning readily come to mind where the system seems to be open to being abused by people taking court cases knowing there is a big queue and that there will be a delay in the case being heard. They know that if they oppose something, it is a way of stalling the process.

We then have criminal cases. There is a very important element in all these cases, particularly in respect of family law cases, where somebody might be seeking protection or seeking to move forward with his or her life. Similarly, with criminal cases, people may spend time on remand or they may face strict bail terms, which interrupts a person's life. This is important. I do not care what a person might get because only a court can convict someone. It is very important that we never take that right away.

A garda told me one night at a community meeting about criminal cases that he would rather have three guilty people go free than for one innocent person to be wrongly convicted, which I though was very wise. We have seen here and in other jurisdictions the effect of presuming guilt before having gone through all the processes in the court.

I understand that in a previous Bill, on which I did not get an opportunity to speak, we provided extra judges, but that was done on a phased basis in order that an assessment would be carried out on the effect. This needs to be very robust. I have seen time and again over many years how we add more staff and resources to the system but within a year or two, the delays are as long as ever. We must make sure that when we put in the resources and mechanisms, we get delivery. It is important that the number of people who have to go to the assessor will be the exception rather than the rule. Maybe a few sharp slaps on the wrist for the system would wake it up to the fact that it is not acceptable anymore and that this should not be a common process. Not everybody should have to go to the assessor because it costs the State a lot of money in both administration and paying out of compensation. Everyone just accepts that it is not their money they are paying out.

If we look at another jurisdiction on this island, we have an even more acute problem, which I have highlighted time and again. I am very surprised it has not been highlighted more by other politicians. In criminal cases, it can take up to eight years or more to get a trial. Three years on remand is not out of the question. Even if a person is let out on bail, of which there is no certainty, the bail conditions are incredibly punitive. I do not have time to list them all. One of the problems is that they are so punitive, they really restrict a person's life. I know of one case where a person was only allowed ten numbers in their mobile telephone and those had to be approved by the court, etc. There is reporting day and night, tagging and so on, year after year. That is not freedom. To my knowledge, there is no statutory way of ensuring that this is taken into account if there is a guilty verdict in the end. That is very wrong. It is happening on our island.

It is my belief that all criminal trials should be brought to justice rapidly. That should be doable within a year and a half to two years. I believe it is much faster down here. We have a duty to our citizens who live north of the Border. If it was in any other country in the world, we would be hopping up and down about the terrible injustice to Irish citizens waiting on trials for eight years. However, it is happening within our island, and it is time we dealt with that issue.

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