Court Accommodation
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-14
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Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South

The courthouses of Ireland are very interesting buildings. Last Friday, I was in the courthouse in Armagh, which is very similar to the other courthouses we inherited from the British around the country. Some of them, because of their antiquity, are in need of significant work, but their antiquity means most are protected structures. I know Dundalk Courthouse well. It is a very fine building in the centre of the town. It has a wonderful location in terms of generating business for the surrounding community.
I have funding within the national development plan for the construction of new courthouses. It is an important part of my programme to ensure Courts Service facilities around the country are suitable. We have built many fine new courthouses over the years. I think particularly of Castlebar, which has a very fine new courthouse. Many of those buildings around the country were designed very effectively. There is money there to build them but when it comes to ancient buildings, there are issues in terms of what can arise.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:56+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-14