Court criers top the list for expenses claims

The post may be on borrowed time, but Court Criers last year continued to occupy the top three rankings of those in the Court Service claiming the highest expenses.

In figures provided by the Courts Service under a Freedom of Information request, the service confirmed that for the second year running, Court Criers or Tipstaffs received the top three amounts in expenses, featuring six times in the top 10 in 2013. The highest expenses payout to a crier was €23,004. A second received €17,933, while a third received €17,385.

There are around 75 tipstaffs in the Courts Service and expenses arise from travel and subsistence costs incurred for attendance in courts away from their home location.

The tipstaffs’ most public role is to usher judges into courtrooms with the usual cry of ‘all rise’. The annual salary for court criers ranges from €22,620 to €32,292 while they can earn up to 23 hours a week in overtime. Their tasks include receiving visitors to the judge’s chambers, filing judgments or obtaining law books, and driving the judge’s car. Court Service staff claimed €1.2m in expenses over the year — an increase on the €990,000 claimed in 2012.

Tipstaffs were first introduced in the 1920s, but their days are numbered with the Court Service not taking on any more following an overhaul in judicial support arrangements.

Instead, the first group of judicial researchers was appointed in 2012.

A spokesman for the Courts Service said the €1.2m expenses bill “shows a reduction of almost 50% on the costs five years ago — when over €2.3m was needed to cover the cost of staff travelling and working away from home — bringing court services and thousands of court sittings to every county in the country”.

He explained: “The reduction in costs was realised in multiple ways; from an across the board reduction of rates paid of around 25%, better organisation and reorganisation of court sittings and times, generally a policy of less use of travel and overnights, more use of video and phone conferencing by staff in conducting non courtroom business, and the centralising of some court venues.”