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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
National
Danny De Vaal

66,000 court summonses currently backlogged following delays caused by pandemic and lack of space for hearings

Some 66,000 court summonses are currently back-logged as a result of the pandemic and lack of space for hearings, figures show.

The legal documents are sent to people informing them to attend court and are issued for offences such as road, drug, public order and assaults.

The data which was obtained by RTE showed that in a normal year before the pandemic, this number typically stood at around 13,000.

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But this figure has significantly dropped from October last year when the number of backlogged summonses stood at 122,000.

The Courts Service told the broadcaster: "The build-up of summons applications reached close to 122,000 at the height of restrictions, as more applications were being received than could be scheduled.

“Substantial inroads into the summons backlog have now been made and it has been reduced to 66,000 the number of summonses awaiting a listing date.

“This is a halving of the numbers awaiting scheduling during Covid.”

They added: “Excellent progress has been made, with backlogs broadly gone for most of the country with the exception of some problems in high-density urban areas such as Dublin.

“Extra sittings were arranged over the Christmas and Easter vacations for the past two years to deal with Covid backlogs.”

A staggering 45,000 of the court summonses are for Dublin.

The Court Service will plan on using courtrooms not being used over Easter when the Circuit, Central, and Special Criminal Courts are not sitting in a bid to reduce the backlog.

They blame the backlog on the pandemic and the lack of courtrooms.

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