James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important question about probate. The Probate Office is an office of the High Court. Management of the courts is the responsibility of the Judiciary and the Courts Service, which are independent in exercising their functions under the Courts Service Act 1998. Probate functions are also carried out by county registrars at district probate registries in 14 provincial court offices. A total of 21,531 applications for probate were received in 2023, while 19,245 were deeded. The Courts Service is dealing with 6,516 probate cases on hand. I will forward a note to the Deputy with full details on waiting times at probate offices for the period requested.

The Minister and I are committed to ensuring the courts are resourced to administer justice equitably, efficiently and effectively and to driving the modernisation and digital first agenda across the entire justice sector. These commitments are reflected in budget 2024, as €183 million has been allocated for the Courts Vote, including capital funding of €67 million. This builds on significant investment in recent years, with a total allocation of €176.5 million in 2023 and €163.9 million in 2022.

In summer 2020, the Courts Service embarked on a large-scale ten-year modernisation programme following business case approval by my Department and the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform. As part of this modernisation programme, funding has been allocated to the Courts Service to develop an online probate system called eProbate. The project will deliver a facility to submit and track applications for grants of representation online via a public facing portal. This new digital solution is currently at the early stages of development and will continue to be developed throughout 2024 with an expected public launch and roll-out in the first half of 2025.

See this speech in context