Talks led to court’s creation

The Courts Service has confirmed that it had been in discussions with the Department of Justice regarding the creation of a second Special Criminal Court for a number of months.

A spokesman for the service said that during these consultations it became clear that the growth in waiting times for cases had “stretched out to 20 months”.

He said the decision by Government to give the green light to a second non-jury court would lessen waiting times and hearings for “some very serious crimes”.

There had been reports in recent days that court officials were caught by surprise at the announcement of the second court by Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald on Wednesday night.

But a Courts Service spokesman said: “The Courts Service has liaised closely with the Department of Justice on this over the past months, as it became clear an increase in the court’s waiting time had stretched out to 20 months.”

He said the increase in the waiting time at the court was “mainly attributable” to an increase in the duration of trials, with some very long trials over the course of the last year.

“For example, one trial lasted 55 days; representing over 13 weeks of court time, and a second took 31 days; almost eight weeks of court hearing time,” he said. “Therefore two trials took up over 50% of sittings during term time since mid 2014.”

He said this inevitably had a “knock on” effect on the scheduling of other trials. He said there were 14 new cases in 2013, nine new cases in 2014, and 10 new cases to date in 2015.

A government source yesterday said that the initiative behind setting up the second Special Criminal Court resulted from a request or a suggestion by the DPP.

The DPP would not comment on the matter when contacted, while the Department of Justice said it would “not be appropriate” to comment on any correspondence from the DPP.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties yesterday repeated its objection to the second court.