Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Tá an-bhrón orm ach beidh mé ag caint i mBéarla, if that is okay.

I thank Senator Clfford-Lee for raising this important matter today and for giving me the opportunity to provide clarity on some issues. I reassure her that we are on track, progressing and going through the stages. As the Senator has rightly outlined, funding of €100 million was allocated, so we intend to make sure that money is spent and that the hole in the ground is filled as soon as possible. I was down near the site only recently and could see it. I imagine those who are looking at it all the time are wondering if it will ever happen, but I reassure Senator Clifford-Lee that it is very much still a priority and we want to make sure this happens.

Construction of a purpose-built family law court complex at Hammond Lane is a key project in the National Development Plan 2021-2030, as I have just mentioned. It is envisaged this will be part of the overall public private partnership, PPP, justice sector project, which, as the Senator and other colleagues are probably aware, will also see the construction of two new Garda stations in Clonmel and Macroom. The complex will be built with the specific needs of family law users in mind, and the intention is that it will provide the modern facility where family law cases can be held in a much more dignified, secure and non-threatening environment with all the range of support services at hand. It will replace the present inadequate and fragmented facility for family law which is stretched across central Dublin at Dolphin House, Chancery Street, Phoenix House and in the Four Courts. Again, I was in Dolphin House not that long ago and, as Senator Clifford-Lee rightly said, the seating arrangements, where people are on top of each other and there is no space, and the fact there are no separate rooms is not adequate, particularly when dealing with such difficult and often traumatic and complex situations and where children are involved and space is needed to be able to support them.

Following approval by the courts board, the Courts Service submitted a final preliminary business case. The Department of Justice, as the approving authority under the public spending code, provided approval in principle to the Courts Service and to An Garda Síochána for the other two projects in June 2022 and to proceed with the project under that particular PPP mechanism. Formal project structures are being established with the various stakeholders, including the Office of Public Works, OPW, and the National Development Finance Agency, NDFA, to progress the project as quickly as possible. This is subject to detailed planning and design work, which is currently being undertaken by the OPW architectural services. It is being informed by consultations undertaken with the relevant stakeholders operating in the area of family law, legislative developments and outputs from family law modernisation initiatives. There is a lot of engagement happening now to make sure the design is as it needs to be and, because it started some years ago, it is as up to date as possible and, essentially, will work in parallel with the developments that are happening at a legislative basis and in terms of our family law justice plan. Once design work is complete, the Part 9 planning process will begin.

I am determined to overhaul the operation of the family justice system to ensure we have a more efficient and user-friendly family court that puts families and children in particular at the centre of its work. This is a key commitment in my justice plan . We have a commitment to enact the family court Bill. This is to create a dedicated family court within the existing court structure to provide for court procedures that support a faster but also less adversarial resolution of disputes. The purpose of the legislation is the establishment of the dedicated family court, to improve levels of judicial expertise and training in family law matters, and to streamline family law proceedings, thereby making them more user-friendly and less costly. The general scheme of the family court Bill is with the office of Parliamentary Counsel at the moment and drafting is in progress. I very much hope to have it brought to Cabinet and to be able to publish it in the coming weeks.

Once the design stage is approved, the project will go to planning, and once planning is approved, it will then go to make sure we have the right costings, after which it will go to tender. All of those stages are moving along. As I said, we have approved to the most recent stage in June. I hope we will have the design finalised by the end of this year. We can then go to planning where there is obviously a timeline in place that I cannot necessarily predict, but once the planning process starts, there is a set timeline where people can object and we have to go through all of that. Once that happens, then the costing is approved. We are moving in the right trajectory. It is just making sure we can, and I am keeping the pressure on so that continues as quickly as possible.