Public-private partnership 'one option' for building Tralee courthouse 

FOI reveals new facility 'depends not only on the availability of a suitable site but also on the availability of funding'

Tralee courthouse.  Kerry is one of only five counties whose court buildings have not been upgraded and the 19th-century building needs double the courtrooms as well as custody and jury facilities. Picture Denis Minihane 

A new courthouse in Tralee “depends not only on the availability of a suitable site but also on the availability of funding”, and a public-private partnership to build a bundle of courthouses across five counties is one of the options, documents released under FOI reveal.

Kerry is one of only five counties whose court buildings have not been upgraded and the 19th-century Tralee building needs double the courtrooms as well as custody and jury facilities, and legal practitioner suites, the documents released by the Courts Service state.

Since Covid-19, Kerry trials have been moved to new complexes in Limerick and Cork, sparking fears for the future of all jury trials in the county which has historically produced some of the most colourful trials and sometimes controversial jury decisions in the country.

Complaints about lack of wheelchair access as well as lack of facilities for family law and victims of sexual violence are raised continuously with the Courts Service and the justice minister by the press as well as victims groups and Oireachtas representatives over several years, the documents reveal.

Resistance to moving out of the location in Ashe St to a new building has been a delaying factor, it is generally accepted. However, cost is also a challenge, the documents show.

Tralee solicitor Joe Mannix wrote to the chief executive of the Courts Service in August 2019 saying that the provision of services in the county town “is infinitely and significantly more important” than which site was selected.

He is told that a survey in 2017 found both building and services were generally poor and repair would be expensive. However “availability of funding” was as much of an issue, the Courts Service state.

“The provision of a new court house accommodation in Tralee depends not only on the availability of a suitable site, but also on the availability of funding,” the Office of the CEO tells Mr Mannix.

The cost of a new courthouse for Tralee is raised in internal documents too.

“A new or refurbished courthouse for Tralee could be provided by way of PPP as part of a bundle of projects (that would also include Roscommon, Wicklow, Galway and Portlaoise) or on the basis of a single standalone project delivered using traditional exchequer funding,” according to updates to the minister for justice from the courts policy division of the Department of Justice in November 2019.

Site options for a new courthouse complex for Tralee include a new build on the Department of Defence-owned site at Ballymullen, on the outskirts of the town, once the home of the Munster Fusiliers regiment.

However, the Courts Service are looking "positively" at the Island of Geese, in the western side of Tralee an old bacon factory donated to Kerry County Council by Kerry Group, and the OPW were to assess it in late 2019.

“Kerry County Council are preparing a master plan for the site and have indicated they would be willing to make a portion of it available to the Courts Service for a courthouse development,” according to the November 2019 memo.