Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
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725. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the reasons she has decided not to increase the number of judges on the Supreme Court; whether she believes the size of that court should be allowed to reduce in number over time, as was the original intention upon the establishment of the Court of Appeal in 2014; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [44294/24]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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It is a priority for my Department to ensure that the courts are resourced to administer justice efficiently and effectively. The Government endeavours to fill judicial vacancies at the earliest opportunity.

There is currently one vacancy in the Supreme Court and it has become practice over the past years to maintain that vacancy. In December 2020, the then Chief Justice confirmed that the existing resources in the Supreme Court (i.e., with the one vacancy) were sufficient to manage the workload on hand. That position is being kept under constant review.

The current number of judges on the Supreme Court enable the court to operate efficiently with no backlog of appeals awaiting a hearing, other than the time required by the parties to fulfil the necessary procedural steps prior to the hearing.

As the Deputy may be aware, following the publication in February 2023 of the Report of the Judicial Planning Working Group, the Government committed to a historic increase of the number of judges to facilitate greater access to justice. The final Report recommended that 44 additional judges be appointed in two phases to the Court of Appeal, High, Circuit and District Courts. The Working Group recommended no additional judges for the Supreme Court.

A first phase of 24 additional judges was approved by Government and appointed throughout 2023. This built on other judicial appointments in the lifetime of this government, bringing the total number of additional appointments to 31.

Following the completion of an impact assessment of the first phase on court business over the summer, I have received Cabinet approval for the implementation of the recommended second phase of another 20 extra judges (2 for the Court of Appeal and 6 each for the High, Circuit and District Courts).

I, along with the Attorney General, will work to introduce legislation to increase the number of judges, which is currently capped for each court.

The Working Group further recommended that a formal judicial resource-planning model should be put in place in the medium-term to assess judicial resource requirements across all courts, including the Supreme Court. Work is underway in my Department to establish such a model.