Politicians have questioned the “extraordinary” allowances available to judges and have queried the necessity for tip-staff, who act as personal assistants to judges.
The Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was examining the Courts Service expenditure when Fianna Fáil TD Brendan Kenneally said some extraordinary allowances were being paid to judges. He singled out two payments - a garage allowance and a sitting room allowance.
Brendan Ryan, Courts Service chief executive, said the €36 sitting room allowance harked back decades when judges spent a lot of time travelling, and may have needed to hire a separate room in a hotel to do their work. He said receipts had to be provided for the allowance.
The garage allowance of €7 a night was not vouched, he said and pointed out that the allowances had been negotiated by the Department of Finance many years ago.
PAC chairman Bernard Allen said the allowances were akin to the moat allowance recently highlighted in the British House of Commons, and he asked the Department of Finance to provide the committee with more information on the matter.
Mr Allen said the employment of tip-staff to assist judges was a throwback to Victorian times and said it was a luxury that judges could do without.
However, Mr Ryan said judges did not have a large number of staff directly supporting them. He said tip-staff were the only link between the judges and the legal profession and outside world. There are about 83 such assistants to Supreme Court, High Court and Circuit Court judges, at a cost of about €2.5 million per year. They provide the judge with information about court sittings and times and escort them to and from the courtrooms.
The committee also looked at the building of the new Criminal Courts of Justice complex, and Labour’s Pat Rabbitte asked if it was time to question the benefit of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the provision of new public buildings, when compared with the traditional method of procurement.
The new courts building was a PPP project and the deal was examined by Comptroller and Auditor General John Buckley. He found it had complied with the relevant guidelines and said it was worth reflecting on how the process of comparison could be improved when choosing between the various procurement options.
