Infrastructure requires planning. Planning requires infrastructure.

The wall of capital available to invest in infrastructure is overshadowed by the walls of planning and politics. The Irish Examiner , The Irish Times , and the Irish Independent have each published articles by economic experts in the past week providing innovative means to direct private and public capital into infrastructure and deliver much-needed projects*.

The capital required to provide suitable housing for all, energy security, and decarbonise transport and industries is ready to be deployed but it cannot be deployed to the extent required until a planning and regulatory system fit for purpose is built first.

This requires investment in both the human capital and capital infrastructure urgently needed across the Irish Courts System and the Irish Planning System. Investments in civic infrastructure like courthouses and government buildings are hard sells for any politician because like hospitals nobody intends to use them, but everybody needs them to function.

Just like nurses, teachers, power plant and public transport operators; judges and their colleagues across the Irish Courts System should be provided with facilities that are at least fit for purpose, but really should be built and maintained to the highest standard so they can attract and retain the best talent to operate these facilities.

Fortunately, it has been proven again and again across jurisdictions that private capital can be deployed effectively to design, build, finance, and maintain courthouses including Amsterdam, Austin, Belfast, Breda, Canberra, Cork, Columbia, Dublin**, Drogheda, Letterkenny, Limerick, Long Beach, Mullingar, Namur, Ontario, Paris, Waterford, and Wexford. This public-private partnership (PPP) delivery model can also free up public capital to be deployed to operate these facilities.

In July 2022 the Houses of the Oireachtas justice committee recommended that a standard approach, potentially on a regulatory footing, be devised and applied to the provision of services across all courthouses in Ireland to ensure consistency in services is provided.

The report*** notes that ‘the Courts Service and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage agreed that, where possible, it was preferable to ensure that Courts should remain in use as courthouses, whether this is made possible through renovation, adaptations or extensions. When this occurs, the Courts Service will renovate these buildings to provide the same standards and facilities expected of a newly built courthouse, seen in recent renovations to, for example, Waterford Courthouse, Mullingar Courthouse and Kilkenny Courthouse. Where this is not possible, stakeholders expressed a preference for courthouses to remain in use in another form, by being given to the Local Authority for use.

They argued against the abandonment of courthouses, stating that many county courthouses currently require ongoing investment to ensure that they do not fall into disrepair. It was pointed out that regular maintenance of courthouse building has not always been possible due to a limited funding, and a preventative maintenance programme has been recommended as a result, to prevent the significant structural decline of these courthouses. The Courts Service has also begun a condition survey to establish the condition of courthouses and determine the likely work and associated costs required to address both backlog and ongoing maintenance in 44 courthouses over the coming 20 years.

The Department of Housing, Heritage and Local Government added that they had undertaken an inventory on courthouses in the 1990s and would be willing to redo this inventory in tandem with the Courts Service to assess the current condition of buildings and their potential for continued use as courthouses or their potential for adaption to a new use.’

The primary purpose of courthouses is not to decide on plans for offshore wind farms, rail lines or retail parks. Courts exist to uphold the law, and public safety, and to accommodate the aggrieved, victimized, and persecuted.

The fact that this fundamental pillar of democracy is still being conducted in facilities built long before electrification, like Midleton Courthouse**** (pictured) or the notorious Dublin Family Law Child Care Office at Chancery Lane, can no longer be justified.

The Oireachtas justice committee has called for the swift development and progression of the family law centre at Hammond Lane in Dublin following submissions from The Bar of Ireland , the Courts Service, and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The Committee has also called for the progression of the redevelopment of Naas Courthouse and Tralee Courthouse.

Following a consultation on the family law centre the planned PPP procurement for Hammond Lane development cannot start soon enough*****, while Naas and Tralee are clearly in need of a rapid procurement, PPP or otherwise. Accelerating the process of establishing whether PPP or another model is the optimum delivery model for courthouses would certainly go a long way to speeding up the entire process.

This will also help accelerate the process of leveraging PPP models to deliver the local and national government buildings required. Establishing where else physical capital improvements can be accelerated to expand the capacity of key agencies in the Planning System such as An Bord Pleanála , the Office of the Planning Regulator , the Maritime Area Planning Agency or local authority offices would go a long way to alleviate the pressure on the Courts System.

This is the kind of enabling infrastructure that a trickle of private capital through PPP can deliver now, to release the flood of pent up private capital ready to be diverted into the minimum €165 billion euro investment urgently needed in water, ports, renewable power, housing, hydrogen, rail, roads, healthcare, education, and the grid.

-----

* Austin Hughes : There is scope in budget for large €2bn package to fight inflation, August 2022.

David Chance :The only way to net zero and beyond is to mobilise capital from the private sector, August 2022.

Patrick Burke : Risk-sharing in climate initiatives can deliver sustainable returns, August 2022.

**

Dublin Criminal Court; Department of Justice / Courts Service / Amber Infrastructure Limited https://www.amberinfrastructure.com/our-sectors/case-studies/dublin-criminal-courts/

Courts Bundle PPP Project; Department of Justice, Courts Service, Royal BAM Group / Invesis https://www.invesis.com/our-projects/irish-courts/

*** Irish Legal News Progress urged on family courts complex to alleviate shortage of courthouses, August 2022.

****

Letter to The Irish Times , Courthouses not fit for purpose, May 2022

Ken Foxe , Irish Independent , Judges, public, lawyers and staff criticise family courts as cramped, intimidating and lacking in privacy, August 2022.