DÁIL ÉIREANN AN COMHCHOISTE UM DHLÍ AGUS CEART, COSAINT AGUS COMHIONANNAS JOINT COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE, DEFENCE AND EQUALITY Dé Céadaoin, 25 Samhain 2015 Wednesday, 25 November 2015 The Joint Committee met at 9.30 a.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Deputy Niall Collins, Senator Ivana Bacik, Deputy Alan Farrell, Senator Martin Conway, Deputy Seán Kenny, Senator Tony Mulcahy. Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, Deputy Gabrielle McFadden, Deputy Finian McGrath, DEPUTY DAVID STANTON IN THE CHAIR. 1 MANAGEMENT AND Administration OF THE Courts: Courts Service OF IRELAND Management and Administration of the Courts: Courts Service of Ireland Chairman: Apologies have been received from Senators Martin Conway, Denis O’Donovan and Katherine Zappone. The purpose of the first part of the meeting is to engage with the Courts Service of Ireland on a number of related matters. On behalf of the joint committee, I welcome Mr. Brendan Ryan and his colleagues. We will meet Mr. John Coyle, Mr. Seán Quigley and Ms Marie Ryan later and hear what they do in the Courts Service of Ireland. We are delighted that they were able to make it this morning. We understand there are 33 agencies within the remit of the Department of Justice and Equality and that the Courts Service of Ireland is one of the more important. We have not had a chance to engage with it during the past four and a half years; therefore, nearing the end of this Dáil, we are delighted that its representatives are able to come and tell us what it is doing, about the challenges it faces and the progress it has made in the past while because it is probably one of the most important services within the remit of the Department. We look forward to positive engagement with it. As we must be out of this committee room by 11.30 a.m., we will keep questions short and sweet. By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by ab- solute privilege in respect of their evidence to the committee. However, if they are directed by it to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person or an entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. Members should be aware that under the salient rulings of the Chair, they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official, either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I remind those present to leave their mobile phones in silent or airplane mode in order that they will not interfere with the sound system and the broadcasting of proceedings. I invite Mr. Ryan to make his opening statement. Mr. Brendan Ryan: I thank the Chairman for the invitation to appear before the joint com- mittee. I look forward to discussing any issue of interest to him and members and dealing with any query they may have. I am accompanied by Mr. John Coyle, head of Circuit Court and District Court operations throughout the country; Mr Seán Quigley, head of resource manage- ment and accountant for the courts of justice; and Ms. Marie Ryan who is a principal officer in the Courts Service of Ireland and heads up my office. The Courts Service of Ireland is responsible for the management and administration of the courts. As members are aware, the administration of justice is a matter for the Judiciary which, in accordance with its constitutional independence and the provisions of the Courts Service Act, is outside the scope of the functions of the Courts Service of Ireland. Members will appreciate, therefore, that in my discussions with them I am precluded from commenting on any matter relating to the exercise by a judge of his or her judicial functions or to the exercise of quasi- judicial functions by an officer of the court. I am also, of course, precluded from commenting on matters of Government policy. Since its establishment, the Courts Service of Ireland has worked to ensure the courts oper- 2 JOINT COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE, DEFENCE AND EQUALITY ate effectively and efficiently, that the use of available resources is optimised, that value for money is achieved and that the best possible service is provided for court users. In the past six years, in common with all Departments and agencies, it experienced very severe reductions in funding and staff numbers. To address this and ensure the courts continued to sit and be supported, it has worked with the Judiciary to introduce a broad range of changes and reforms which have yielded significant savings for the Exchequer, while maintaining access to justice and services for the public. The service has diligently cut expenditure and, through proactive management, increased court fees, resulting in a significant contribution to the Government’s recovery programme. We have robust financial control measures in place across the organisa- tion to ensure expenditure is kept to an absolute minimum and incurred only where it is abso- lutely necessary and unavoidable and that value for money is achieved. In the past six years the Courts Service of Ireland has engaged in a comprehensive range of operational and structural reform measures to achieve greater value for money, improved ef- ficiency in processes and optimisation of the available funding and staffing resources. This has resulted in significant increased productivity and efficiency in the delivery of services. It also supported and facilitated a reduction of up to 41% in the net cost to the Exchequer of running the courts since 2008. Given the severity of the funding and staffing reductions in the Courts Service, which gave rise to a 16% reduction in staff numbers - double the Civil Service average and significantly greater than the public service average of 10% - it would not have been possible to maintain court services and sittings without introducing a range of efficiency and productivity measures across all aspects of court structures, administration and operation. The measures implemented included reform of the court regional structures and court office structures, with the introduc- tion of cross-jurisdiction combined court offices, the closure of smaller court offices and the ongoing rationalisation of court venues. These measures have maximised the use of resources and successfully freed up both judicial and staff time to support the hearing of cases. We have also worked to introduce a substantial programme of legislative and process reform with the ongoing streamlining of court office business procedures to enable improved operation of the courts and efficiency in deployment of court resources. The implementation of our ICT programme has resulted in the optimisation of courtroom and court support technology, including: the rolling out of digital audio recording to all court jurisdictions and venues; extended use of video link and video conferencing, which has resulted in significant cross-justice sector efficiency; and the development of case management and e- filing projects, including the case management systems for the personal insolvency service, the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court and ICT support for the new fines legislation and e-filing projects, such as the debt claims online project and e-licensing, which are still under way. There has been increased staff flexibility in a number of areas, such as logging of digital au- dio recording by court registrars, increased in-house ICT support and legal support, all of which have yielded significant savings. The Courts Service also continues to support the mediation initiative in Dolphin House, resulting in minimum savings of 315 days in court since inception to the end of 2014 and other cost-reduction measures. The Courts Service fully accepts and supports the Government’s ongoing requirement for savings to be achieved and is very conscious that although there has been an easing of the fi- nancial crisis, the need for reform in the delivery of public services remains. We are, therefore, continuing our ongoing review of the operation of the courts and the implementation of our modernisation programme. 3 MANAGEMENT AND Administration OF THE Courts: Courts Service OF IRELAND The improved financial situation has been reflected in the Government Estimates for 2016, and the Courts Service has received a very welcome increase in additional funding of €1.75 million, or 1.6%. This will allow us to begin to address the key challenge for the service in recent years, namely, the lack of sufficient staff, which, despite the reforms introduced, has had an impact on the support we can provide for the Judiciary and court sittings and on the provi- sion of core court services to the public. The reduction of up to 16% in full-time staff numbers coincided with an increase in workloads in a number of areas of our operations, most noticeably possession cases, in respect of which the number of civil bills increased by 883% in 2014 and the number of court orders increased by 105%. There has also been an increase generally in the complexity and length of court hearings, an increase of 10% in the number of court sitting days and an increase in the number of judges, which has resulted in the ratio of staff to judges falling from 7.3:1 in 2009 to 5.8:1 in 2015, a reduction of 22%.