Éamon Ó Cuív warns of eight-year trial delays, urges reform
Éamon Ó Cuív spoke about pervasive delays in administrative and court systems and welcomed a bill intended to tackle delay, while urging it to deliver concrete results. He criticised lengthy criminal trial waits, punitive bail conditions and the routine use of delay in family, civil and planning cases.
Overview of the bill and position
Éamon Ó Cuív welcomed the bill aimed at addressing delay but pressed for prompt passage and effective implementation. He argued that remedies themselves often suffer delay and that the new measures must produce the intended outcomes rather than becoming another slow process.
Administrative delays and the Ombudsman
He highlighted delays across the State and in administrative remedies, noting that complaints to the Ombudsman now take much longer than when the office was first established. He said citizens should not have to pursue assessors or take action against the State simply to secure timely decisions.
Court delays across case types
Ó Cuív detailed how delays affect family law, civil planning and criminal cases, including people who cannot access urgent family law relief or face years-long waits. He warned that some litigants use lengthy queues to stall processes and that remand or strict bail conditions can severely disrupt lives.
Assessor, resources and accountability
He argued the assessor route should be an exception rather than the rule and urged robust assessment of additional resources. Referring to a previous phased provision of extra judges, he said increased staffing must translate into lasting reductions in delay and not see queues return within a year or two.
Criminal trial backlog and bail conditions
Ó Cuív raised particular alarm about trials taking "eight years or more" in some criminal cases and cited examples of prolonged remand or punitive bail - nightly reporting, tagging, restricted phone contacts - lasting years. He said criminal trials should be resolved much faster, suggesting a target of a year and a half to two years, and urged attention to the injustice of current waits.
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Good morning and good morning and good morning. I think it would be very appropriate if there wasn't any inordinate delay in putting this bill through, because it is all about delay, and I have to say that in recent years, more and more delay seems to be endemic in every system, and even in the remedies to deal with delay, there can be delays, and I have had a number of cases with the Ombudsman recently, and that takes a lot longer than it did initially when the Ombudsman was set up. You can go to the Ombudsman and say you want to complain about a delay, but that in itself takes time. So I think we need to deal with delay both in the administrative system and also in the traditional or legal system. I welcome the bill, but I hope it will have the results that it is intended to have. Now, I think the first thing in dealing with this issue of delay is to look at why it is happening and then to deal with it. In reality, people should not have to go to an assessor and take effectively action against the State for delay. Unfortunately, in too many cases, you wish you could do it every day of the week with so many parts of the State, including the Department of Justice, who I find can be very slow dealing with issues. But when it comes to the courts, it becomes even more important. Maybe it is a family law case where somebody needs urgent action and they do not get that action because of delays in the court, they cannot get into the court or other delays. Maybe there is a delay and you see this in times where there are years to resolve family law cases. Then we obviously have the case of civil cases, issues such as planning come to mind readily, where the system seems to be open to being abused by people taking court cases knowing that there is a big queue and that there will be a delay in the case being heard and that if they oppose something, that is a way of stalling the process. Then we get to criminal cases. I think there is a very important element in all these cases, particularly the family law cases, where somebody might be seeking protection and looking to move forward with their life. Similarly with criminal cases, where people are spending time on remand or on strict bail terms, which does interrupt your life. It is important, I do not care what you might guess, but only a court can convict you. It is very important that we never take that right away. There is one guard that said to me one night when we had a community meeting about criminal cases and I think he was very wise. He said that I would rather three guilty people get free rather than one innocent person be wrongly convicted. I think we have seen here and in other jurisdictions the effect of presuming guilt before you go through all the processes in the court. Minister, I understand that in a previous bill that I did not get an opportunity to speak on, that we provided extra judges, but that was done on a phased basis so that there would be an assessment carried out as the effect of it. This needs to be very robust. I have seen time and again over many years where we add more staff to the system, more resources, but within a year or two the delays are as big as ever. I think we have to make sure that when we put in the resources and when we put in the mechanisms that we get delivery. I also believe it is important that this assessor or the number of people who have to go to the assessor would be the exception rather than the rule. There may be a few sharp slaps on the wrist for the system that would wake it up that it is not something that is acceptable any more and that that would not be a common process and that we are not going to find that nearly everybody has to go to the assessor and that it is costing the state a lot of money in both administration and paying out compensation because everyone just accepts and it is not their money that they are paying out. Can I say here, finally, that if we look at another jurisdiction on this island of course we have an even more acute problem. A problem that I have highlighted time and again and that I am very surprised that it has not been highlighted more by other politicians is that in criminal cases it can take up to eight years or more to get a trial. Eight years or more to get a trial. Three years on remand is not out of the question. Even if let out of bail and there is no certainty of that, the bail conditions are incredibly punitive. One of the problems is that they are so punitive that they really restrict your life. For example, in one case I know of where there were only 10 numbers allowed on the mobile phone and they had to be approved by the court, etc., etc., etc., reporting day and night, tagging and so on, year after year. That is not freedom. And again, to my knowledge, there is no statutory way of ensuring that that is taken into account if there is a guilty verdict in the end. That is very wrong. It is happening in our island. My belief is that all criminal trials should be brought to justice rapidly and I would expect that that should be doable within a year and a half to two years. I believe that they do it a lot faster down here. I think it is something that we have a duty to our citizens who live north of the border. If it was in any other country across the world, we would be hopping up and down saying about the terrible injustice to Irish citizens that they are waiting for trials for eight years. It is happening within our island and it is time that we dealt with that issue.
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