As the courthouse is unavailable, cases are being heard in rented accommodation which is expensive and unsatisfactory, writes Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Correspondent
When the new Courts Service came into existence almost 2½ years ago, it inherited a network of courthouses around the country which barely met the needs of the 20th century, let alone the 21st.
Clean toilets, consulting rooms for lawyers and their clients, waiting areas for those waiting for their cases to be heard, adequate offices for judges and clerical staff, were all the exceptions rather than the rule.
Yet the courthouses were the architectural centrepieces of many, if not most, of the bigger towns in the State. So proposals for massive capital investment in our court infrastructure were welcomed as responsibility for courts was transferred from local authorities to the new service.
In Cork the corporation had already undertaken the work of restoring the outside of the city's courthouse, an imposing structure on one of the city's main thoroughfares, Washington Street. This was completed, at a cost of about €3.8 million.
The corporation also had plans for a refurbishment of the interior of the building but, according to a spokesman for the Courts Service, these were inadequate for an area of population as large as Cork.
It is understood these plans provided for a limited number of courtrooms in the building, with inadequate accommodation for judges, lawyers and staff. There are three or four circuit courts sitting permanently in Cork. The High Court also sits there two or three weeks each term, and public hearings of coroners' inquests take place there.
When the Courts Service took over the building, therefore, it decided it needed entirely new plans. It appointed a project manager and set about examining which areas of the building needed to be preserved. It also carried out consultations with judges, staff, solicitors, barristers, Victim Support, the Garda and other court users, then instructed architects to redraw the plans to provide for seven courtrooms, as well as facilities for court staff, barristers, solicitors and private consulting rooms, especially for family law cases.
"This process of consultation, architectural drawing and seeking planning approval does take time," said the spokesman for the Courts Service. "But the quality of what is proposed has made it worthwhile.
"Due to the scale of the project an EU-wide procurement has had to be undergone. We are currently evaluating the tenders received and initiating a value-for-money study with the OPW [Office of Public Works]. This will be completed in a matter of weeks."
The total cost is expected to be in the region of €25 million.
Meanwhile, those charged with crimes and those seeking resolution of disputes, along with their lawyers, the judges and ancillary staff, are in temporary rented accommodation in a restored warehouse almost a mile away. This costs €750,000 a year, and is far from satisfactory, according to court users.
"In one of the criminal sessions last year water came in through the roof and the trial had to be abandoned," said Mr Tim O'Leary, a local barrister. "Judge, jury and all had to leave. We didn't know if we were going to be flooded or electrocuted.
"It's not pleasant for members of the public either. They are standing around in corridors, including people involved in family law cases, who could be standing beside the person they're having a very bitter dispute with . . .
"It's inconvenient as well. All our offices are in Washington Street and in the old days you could be back and forth, like the Round Hall and the Law Library in Dublin. Now you're gone for the day. If we'd thought it was going to be five years we'd have got alternative offices."
According to the plans, the new courthouse will meet all conceivable requirements, and will be to the highest design standards, with a glass floor between the first and ground floors. It will have seven courtrooms, facilities for judges and staff, consultation rooms, waiting areas, family law and media facilities, rooms for lawyers and juries, and disabled access.
If work, due to start in the autumn, is seen to be progressing well, it is likely that the legal community in Cork will be patient for a while longer. But in the current atmosphere of cutbacks, Government attention may turn to the planned new courthouse, which requires special Department of Finance approval.