A report to the Minister for Justice has recommended setting up an office to provide information to the media and public on the working of the courts. It also proposes a special conference early this year to consider how to make court documents available to the media and the public.
The proposals are in the latest report of the Working Group on a Courts Commission, composed of Mrs Justice Susan Denham of the Supreme Court, two High Court judges, other senior legal figures and three lay people. The group says the information office should be set up "as soon as possible" within the proposed new Courts Service.
It also recommends that the service provided by the recently appointed courts assistance officer at the Four Courts in Dublin to assist the public should be extended to other major urban centres.
The report stresses that "such a service would be of little use without sufficient sources of information at its disposal". It points to the "dearth of useful statistics on the Irish legal system".
The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, said the implementation of the recommendations would be a matter for the chief executive officer and board of the Courts Service. He expected the legislation to set this up would be in place within the next few months.
The report finds that most people seeking help from the courts assistance officer do not even realise that the vast majority of trials are open to the public.
It says part of the information office's remit would be to make provision for bona-fide members of the press to have access to public court documents.
The Commission on the Newspaper Industry, chaired by the former chief justice, Mr Justice Thomas Finlay, recommended in 1996 that there should be "a simple and certain procedure" allowing journalists to inspect such documents.
The working group plans to hold a conference early this year with representatives from the press and media, the judiciary, the lawyers' professional bodies, court staff and others to "consider a practical answer to this problem and how it can be provided for within the Courts Service."