Outstanding warrants: Justice backlog pushed back

As the old adage goes, justice delayed is justice denied.

A current application of this is the revelation that there were 115,000 outstanding warrants at the end of last month within the criminal justice system.

Fianna Fáil has made a major play of this, citing the force’s ageing Pulse system and cutbacks in the force as the main culprits for undermining its ability to execute warrants. The party’s justice spokesman, Niall Collins, wants Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald to establish a Garda taskforce to deal with what he describes as “a growing number of outstanding warrants”. Mr Collins needs reminding that the number of outstanding warrants stood at 117,000 in 2008, when his party was in office, and has oscillated since.