Closure of our courthouses is pennywise and pound foolish
In a bid to save negligible amounts of taxpayers’ money, many courthouses have been closed since the onset of the recession. It appears Skibbereen courthouse, which the West Cork Bar Association says costs just €12,000 a year to maintain, may be next. The great sweep of County Cork from Kinsale to Berehaven will then be served by just four court sittings: in Bantry, Clonakilty, Bandon and Macroom, a fewer number than at any time since the 1810s.
Surely the recession is not a good enough excuse to remove the natural right and expectation of citizens to have access to the State’s justice system? Most of West Cork’s courthouses were built in the 1820s and 1830s and have served the area well through good times and bad, including war and famine. Although many of them were burned or damaged during the Revolutionary Period of 1913-23, the Free State government realised it was a nationally-important project to rebuild and reopen these courthouses. These are the same buildings which our ancestors paid their hard-earned taxes to repair and keep in a time of scarcity and upheaval.
