THE Department of Justice has publicly acknowledged that it cannot meet the demands placed on it. It is implementing a five-year plan to ensure that it can fulfil its role.
Staff levels at the Department have remained static, at 433 since 1986, during which time its workload has "mushroomed", according to the Department.
In a policy statement yesterday, arising from the Government's Strategic Management Initiative on the Civil Service, the Department said it would continue to retain responsibility for the justice policy.
It would co-operate fully with the transfer of responsibility for running courts, prisons, land registry and some other functions to independent bodies. It pointed out that it had already recommended the transfer of these functions before the Government announcements this year.
The Department had been promoting the idea of a courts commission long before the Government announcement in the wake of the Judge Dominic Lynch affair last month.
Since the Lynch affair, which led to the release and rearrest of 17 men who had appeared before the judge after he had been delisted from the Special Criminal Court, the Department has come in for intensive criticism.
It was revealed that three months after he had been delisted, he had not been notified by the Department and all the remand cases before him were void. The legality of the continued detention of the men will be tested in court next month.
The Department admitted yesterday that access to the court system is "too slow, costly and complex". It wholeheartedly endorsed the proposal by the working party set up by Government to establish a courts commission.
It would fully participate in the establishment of a prisons board or agency while continuing to ensure that offenders were treated with "care, justice, dignity and respect" and that equal emphasis was placed on community-based alternatives to custody.
"We believe that it is right, however, that the Government, through the Minister for Justice, should retain overall responsibility and accountability for these services. We will do our utmost to serve the Minister in discharging these responsibilities."
The report observed: "Current limitations on staff numbers in the Civil Service seem likely to continue for some time to come. Even with maximum efficiency and commitment from its staff, it has become increasingly clear that the Department cannot meet all of the demands now being made on it. Therefore we need to ensure that our resources are allocated in the way that is best suited to meet Government priorities in the law and order area.
"That is why it is now essential to decide what the core business of the Department actually is and to identify the strategies best geared to secure effective discharge of that business.
"These strategies must result in the shedding of areas of work, development and new structures, priorities and so on."