Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has said that appointing the six judges is cost neutral but I want to tease out his claim. These people, who are possibly county registrars at the moment, could be appointed judges. He mentioned that their current pay scale is ¤126,000 or between ¤123,000 and ¤140,000 and that the judge's pay scale would start at around ¤140,000. How does it benefit the registrar to accept a position with different responsibilities that also needs certain qualifications? Obviously he or she would become a full-time judge under the new system but who will replace them and become the new county registrar? Will a replacement mean that a person is bumped up the system? Does that involve a cost? Will there be replacements down the line? Will they be from within the system?

There have been quite a number of redundancies in the Courts Service and the organisation is quite stretched. The Minister said that he hoped that six registrars will apply for the positions. If that does not happen and he must invoke the other appointment mechanism, will the registrars then become additional staff in the judicial service? If so, and in the worst case scenario, the Department would have to employ the six of them incurring a large cost to the State. It would mean multiplying the basic pay of ¤140,000 by six plus their other earnings and the final cost could total almost ¤750,000. That is a potentially large cost to the Exchequer if the county registrars do not take up the offer.