Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for Justice, Deputy Harris, for being here. It is my first time to talk with the Minister since his elevation to a second ministry as the Minister for Justice, and I congratulate him on that. I thank the Minister for his very comprehensive opening statement. What tends to happen in here is that we all repeat our briefing notes, which the Minister has already said in his opening remarks, so I will not do that. I thank the Minister for the very detailed analysis of what is promised.

I am not a practitioner, as are Senators Seery Kearney and Martin. I am not a barrister with the familiarity of the courts system as they have, but certainly it surprises me as to how it has taken so long to get to where we are. Why have we not done this years ago? This does not really matter now but it surprises me that all of these very sensible provisions are not in practice. I know it was in the programme for Government, which was agreed by the three parties, including Fianna Fáil. It is children centred and has had lots of consultations. There would be specialist judges dedicated to doing this full time, so they would get better and better at it and it would not be something they would dip in and out of. It would also be separate buildings or separate parts of buildings so the families and children are not interacting unnecessarily with other adults. This would be very positive because while it is a traumatic thing for anybody of any age to go to court, it is particularly so for families where children are involved in having to go into court. It is very helpful that it is being done in this way. This is what strikes me. Why did we not do all these very sensible things long before now? That said, the Bill is very positive. I certainly welcome it and I certainly do not want to delay the passage of the Bill through the House.It is very useful that we are doing this. The Minister even gave us the word count of his speech. It is 18 minutes long and comprises 2,500 words. I am certainly not going to make a contribution of 2,500 words and 18 minutes by way of response. This is welcome and useful legislation. I am interested in the timeline as to how fast we can get it both through the Houses and in respect of what happens thereafter, that is, how soon will we see a building, see judges appointed and so on. These things obviously take time and we need to do it properly but it would be to the benefit of all of the users of the courts, the practitioners and, more importantly, the families and the children affected in particular, were this to happen sooner rather than later. I welcome this important Bill and support it.