Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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40. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the progress made in developing and delivering a modern courts infrastructure, including the move to digitalisation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54136/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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As Minister responsible for access to justice, I am committed to ensuring a modern and efficient court system that continues to meet the changing needs of those who engage with it.

The Courts Service is progressing an ambitious 10-year Modernisation Programme to deliver digitally enabled services designed around the user. This programme commenced in 2020 with the approval of a multiyear business plan and is currently in the third of its four implementation phases; the fourth phase is scheduled to commence in 2026.

The Courts Service values the constructive and ongoing assistance that is being provided by a wide range of stakeholders, including judiciary, legal practitioners, NGOs and advocacy groups, other government departments, and members of the public as part of the many projects underway. These include the introduction of a Unified Case Management System (UCMS), which will enable digital end to end journeys supporting court users and the courts dealing with matters digitally where appropriate. The UCMS is being incrementally rolled out to different areas of court work, and will support a broad range of digital applications, responses, case tracking, and order collection – reducing the use of manually intensive paper-based processes. The UCMS has been rolled out to many back-office operations and is now in pilot for legal practitioners and lay-litigants to digitally file through an online portal. This portal currently supports circuit family proceedings in Dublin, and post pilot will be deployed to the rest of circuit family cases across the country. Over time, the portal will be expanded incrementally to support other matters, such as the launch of probate via the portal in the coming months.

The Courts Service has continued the expansion of video-link and technologically enabled courtrooms, providing remote courts and digital evidence display functionality. Video technology is now available in 167 courtrooms.

Other key outputs of the Modernisation Programme include, providing plain language information about the court system, the relaunch of courts.ie as a mobile friendly accessible source of court information, the introduction of a digital jury system where jury summons can be responded to online, the roll-out of Wi-Fi to court buildings across the country, the roll-out of an appointment booking service, trauma-informed practice training and the roll out of plain language, user-friendly court application forms and standardised processes across all 33 District Family Court offices for high volume applications such as Domestic Violence, Maintenance and Arrangements for Children.