Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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The Minister of State is very welcome this morning. I thank him for coming in to answer this Commencement matter. The situation regarding the courtroom facilities in Castlerea Prison is something I have wanted to raise for some time. Castlerea is a medium-security prison, purpose built to serve as a committal prison for Connacht and counties like Cavan, Donegal and Longford. It has a capacity of 340. It is a modern facility equipped to deal with the realities of the prison population in the 21st century. However, part of the investment was the provision of a courtroom and associated infrastructure including videolink technology, holding cells and the necessary security systems. These were put in place precisely to reduce the burden of escorting prisoners long distances, increase safety and make the justice system more efficient. Yet, despite this investment, these facilities are laying largely idle. Instead, what continues to happen is that prison officers in Castlerea are escorting prisoners to courts all over the country, including Letterkenny, a round trip of eight hours in some cases. That is not an efficient use of resources, it is not safe and it is not fair on staff who are pulled away from their core duties inside the prison. It is certainly not fair on prisoners who must endure long, disruptive journeys for court appearances that in many cases could and should be dealt with on site via secure videolink.

This raises very basic questions. Why have a courtroom in Castlerea if it is not going to be used? Why spend taxpayers' money on state-of-the-art facilities only to let them gather dust while continuing to incur the cost, the security risk and the human strain of long-distance prisoner travel? There are specific questions that the Department and the Courts Service must try to answer. Why are the modern facilities in Castlerea not being used? Are they legal? Are there administrative issues? Are they infrastructural or resource-based in nature? What steps has the Department taken to make Castlerea Prison courtroom operational? Has any assessment been carried out to compare the cost of these long journeys in financial terms, security terms and staff strain against the cost of activating the courtroom in Castlerea Prison? What is the timeline? When can we expect these facilities to be used on a regular basis, as was originally intended when public money was spent on them?

This is not just a theoretical issue. It is a live, practical problem that affects prison staff, prisoners and our court system and, ultimately, it affects the taxpayer. We are spending twice, once to build the facility that we are not using and, again, to cover the enormous cost of doing these things the old way. At a time when we are talking about efficiencies in justice, modernising our Prison Service, reducing the risk and respecting human rights, it is simply indefensible to have a courtroom in Castlerea Prison lying idle while convoys travel up and down the country every week. I ask the Minister of State to give clarity and tell us what is happening, what is being done to fix it and when we can expect the situation to change.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Senator for raising this matter. The Minister sends his apologies. Unfortunately, he is in Brussels at a European Affairs Ministers' meeting so he cannot be here. He asked me to take this matter on his behalf.

In relation to court sittings at Harristown courtroom, which is what it is known as at Castlerea Prison, the Courts Service has advised that there has been no change to the scheduled sittings taking place in that location. The court is scheduled to sit on the fourth Friday of each month, which it continues to do. During 2024, the court sat on 46 occasions and to date in 2025, the court has sat on 34 occasions.

Where the District Court sitting at Harristown is dealing with remands from other districts, pursuant to section 5 of the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1997, it should be noted that it has no jurisdiction to finalise the charges or hear the trial, and the matter must be remanded back to the originating court for trial or sentence. Physical attendance for remands, rather than appearance by videolink, is a matter for the Judiciary and is subject to section 23 of the Civil Law and Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2020.

The Courts Service has made inquiries in relation to remands in Letterkenny District Court and has confirmed that videolink is the default position for any remand unless the judge directs otherwise. The Minister is prioritising efforts to ensure that the courts are adequately resourced to administer justice efficiently and effectively just as the Senator articulated in his contribution.

This past year marks the full calendar year of supporting a significantly enlarged Judiciary and court operations in the wake of the 2023 publication of the Report of the Judicial Planning Working Group and the appointment of 24 additional judges. Following an impact assessment of the first phase of judicial appointments following the publication of the Report of the Judicial Planning Working Group, Government approval was secured on 22 October 2024 to increase judicial numbers by a further 20 judges to meet the growing demands on the justice system and to further reduce long waiting times across the courts. The Minister intends to request the Judicial Appointments Commission to initiate the selection processes for these judges later this year. Taken together, these two sets of appointments represent an increase of approximately 25% in the number of judges in Ireland. This year, the Courts Service was allocated a budget of over €199.8 million, with additional funding to allocate to provide for the recruitment of additional staff to support the expanding Judiciary and bolster modernising measures.

Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State very much. It is interesting to hear there has been no change to that, but I welcome the additional court staff. I am looking at a newspaper cutting from 2020 with the headline "Harristown courthouse makes history as video-link installed for hearings". It was celebrated at the time. Obviously, we were dealing with a situation where we were trying to stop the spread of Covid-19 at the time. However, for some of these travels, I would hope that the videolink system could be used more to reduce the number of sittings that are required for people travelling and, with the additional judges, I hope that can be looked at. If the Minister was here, I was going to acknowledge response he gave on Monday, 8 September, to Deputy O'Flynn regarding the national development plan and what the Government was planning to continue to invest in the prison services, which included additional investment for additional spaces in Castlerea Prison.I would have thus expected the facilities in Castlerea to have been used more given the increased capacity. I thank the Minister of State very much for his response.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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Where the District Court sitting at Harristown is dealing with remands from other districts, it should be noted that it has no jurisdiction to finalise the charges or hear the trial and the matter must be remanded back. That is obviously the reason some prisoners are remanded back to their original location.

Physical attendance for remands is a matter for the Judiciary. As the Senator rightly says, it was introduced in 2020 as a measure to help with Covid. It should be used, but it is a matter for the Judiciary itself. The Courts Service has made inquiries in relation to remands in Letterkenny District Court and has confirmed that videolink is the default position for any remand unless the judge directs otherwise. There are always certain circumstances where they want to have the person physically present, but the Senator has articulated the point well about greater efficiencies. It would appear from the note I am reading that the Courts Service is on the same page as him, except in exceptional circumstances.