Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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851. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons awaiting the granting of a divorce through the courts; the average waiting time for an application to be processed and finalised; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47977/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will appreciate, management of the courts and operational matters, including matters pertaining to court buildings, are the responsibility of the Courts Service, which is independent in the exercising of its functions under the Courts Service Act 1998. However, to be of assistance to the Deputy, my officials have made enquires with the Courts Service and the following sets out the position in relation to the Deputy’s question.

In relation to the number of divorce proceedings awaiting grants before the Court, I am advised that the Courts Service is currently unable to provide figures for the divorce cases awaiting finalisation. A new Unified Case Management System (UCMS) for Circuit Family Court cases was rolled out last year, as part of an ongoing courts modernisation project, and will in time, allow a fuller statistical picture of the lifecycle of Circuit family proceedings to be available. It is expected that the information sought in this question will be available in the near future.

The introduction of UCMS already allows for the better generation of information in many areas, including waiting times. Previously, legacy family court systems did not allow for the generation of accurate statistic, so waiting times were based on an estimated time from commencement of proceedings to their conclusion. UCMS now provides information on the actual historic case data and this allows for an accurate picture of how long it takes from the start to conclusion of divorce proceedings.

In 2025, the median duration period of divorce proceedings is 48 weeks. The duration of proceedings refers to the median time from the date of issue to the final order on the case. The Courts Service use median times rather than the average time because it offers a more accurate representation of typical durations of divorce proceedings and avoids distortion from cases of unusually short or long duration.