Union says it is appalled at comments at comments on courts service

THE union representing executive officers in the Department of Justice has said it is "appalled" at some of the comments by lawyers…

THE union representing executive officers in the Department of Justice has said it is "appalled" at some of the comments by lawyers in the media about the functioning of the Department's courts and prison services divisions.

Staff were defended by the deputy general secretary of the Public Service Executive Union, Mr Tom McKevitt, who has been the union representative at hearings of the Cromien Inquiry for members of the PSEU.

Mr McKevitt said references by members of the Bar Council to the system being chaotic and unaccountable were "an outrageous slur on the competence and integrity of the staff".

Referring to the prison services division, he said that the competence of the 50 people concerned could be judged from the fact that 250 people were needed to do the same job in Northern Ireland, which has a prison population of similar size to the Republic.

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In the courts division, he said there had been no increase in staffing in recent times, despite a huge increase in the amount of legislation to be administered.

Since 1994, there had been a Court and Court Officers Act, a Criminal Justice Act, a Domestic Violence Act and six pieces of anti drugs legislation. The Domestic Violence Act alone had led to a doubling of the workload for court clerks in the Dublin area, Mr McKevitt said.

"The notion that the same staff, if removed from the Department of Justice to the new courts service, could not administer that service independently of the Department of Justice has no basis and flies in the face of all previous transfers out of the Civil Service."

Mr McKevitt added that Mrs Justice Denham, in her recent report on the courts system, said: "The fact the courts have functioned as well as they have heretofore is due to the dedication of people over the last 70 years in operating the judicial arm of the Government."

The report also said: "In view of the unique nature of the court service" any new, unified system, should be "staffed by civil servants of the State".