Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister understands my position. The amendments I tabled were predicated on concerns about the capacity of the District Court to deal with the expanded jurisdiction that is being handed to it in this Bill. That is not to say the District Court is not important. I do not want to cast any aspersions on it. The District Court deals with a greater caseload than any other court in this jurisdiction. It goes through things at a rate of knots. District Court judges probably sit longer than any other judges in system. They deal with a huge volume of material but that is, in itself, the source of the problem because we have a situation where they already have an enormous volume of material.

What is proposed in the Bill, specifically section 80, is that a number of cases that would otherwise be dealt with in the Circuit Court or a higher court be shifted to the District Court lists. There are two really good reasons why that should not happen. The first is the caseload and the capacity of the District Court simply in terms of time to deal with those cases. The second relates to the capacity of the District Court when dealing with complex issues that might take time. They will not be reported on because there is not a precedence role for the District Court in terms of establishing case law and stare decisis but also in terms of the complexity of issues that are not appropriate for the setting of a District Court where there is a huge turnover of cases. The reality is judges are not vested with the time and resources to give the careful consideration that happens in a large number of family law cases in the Circuit Court and the High Court.

I sound a note of caution in regard to section 80 and its amendment to the 1989 Act, in terms of the expanded jurisdiction of the District Court. My fear is that it will create unintended consequences from the point of view of the burden it will place on those operating within the District Court and on the capacity of that court to render decisions in an efficient way, which is largely working at the moment.

That is not to say, by any stretch, that the system is perfect, but given the investment the Minister has put into increasing the number of Circuit Court judges, and what we saw in the budget yesterday in terms of Vote 24 and expanding the facilities available to the Courts Service with new registrars and new courtrooms, that will help the system work more efficiently than putting more cases into the District Court.