Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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102. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if she will provide information on the number of digital audio recordings requested by litigants in 2013 and the revenue derived from those transactions; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23416/14]

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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103. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if she will provide information on the number of digital audio recordings requested by judges for their own use and the costs of this service; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23417/14]

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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104. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if she will provide information on the total cost of the digital audio recordings system to the State in 2013; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23418/14]

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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106. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the reason that transcription work and the typing is carried out in a Third World country in the Far East when Irish jobs could be created at lower cost; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23420/14]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 102 to 104, inclusive, and 106 together.

The Deputy will be aware that, under the provisions of the Courts Service Act 1998, management of the courts, which includes the provision of information on the courts system, is the responsibility of the Courts Service. However, in order to be of assistance to the Deputy, I have had enquiries made and the Courts Service has informed me that statistics on applications by litigants for Digital Audio Recordings (DAR) are not maintained and also that there is no fee payable by the applicant for a recording of court proceedings.

The Courts Service has a five year contract (extendable by two years) up to the end of 2015 for Digital Audio Recording Systems, Managed Storage and Transcription Services with Fujitsu (Ireland) Limited. The contract was entered into following a procurement process in accordance with EU and government procurement regulations. Access to DAR recordings for members of the judiciary is via a database accessible from each judge's computer. This service forms part of the overall contract and statistics on access to this database by judges are not maintained. I am informed that the total cost of DAR to the Courts Service Vote in 2013 was €2,197,070.

Transcription services for the courts are sub-contracted by Fujitsu to a service-provider. I am informed that the majority of transcripts are created in Ireland by staff working for the service provider. In the last year the total folios of transcripts transcribed was 495,335 and 92.3% of this was transcribed in Ireland. International transcribers are only used when the volume of transcripts reaches a peak. However, in-camera cases are transcribed only within Ireland. The cost of creating a transcript is based on the length of the transcript and the turnaround time, regardless of where the transcript is created.