Courthouse costs to exceed €10 million
THE Courts Service estimate that the cost of carrying out substantial refurbishments to Wicklow Courthouse will exceed €10 million.
Wicklow Courthouse hasn’t held Circuit Court sittings since 2008 and District Court sittings since 2010 due to health and safety concerns over the condition of the building.
In correspondence with Wicklow Municipal District, the Court Service said that plans for the works haven’t been costed but, based on experience in similar projects in the past, the cost would ‘certainly exceed’ €10 million.
The Courts Service currently don’t have funding for a project of this scale.
Speaking at Monday’s monthly meeting of Wicklow Municipal District, Cllr Gail Dunne said he was dismayed by the statement from the Court Services.
‘I don’t know where they are getting the figure of €10 million from. They have already spent nearly €16 million holding the courts in Bray since the courts in Wicklow closed,’ he said.
Cllr Daire Nolan said businesses next to the courthouse in Market Square had suffered since the court sittings moved to Bray.
Cllr John Snell was critical of Simon Harris TD during his time as Minister of State for the Office of Public Works.
‘Here in Wicklow we had a Minister for the OPW who had a lot to say about the courthouse and delivered very little. At the moment the empty courthouse is a huge blight on the landscape.’
Councillors agreed to contact all of Wicklow’s TDs in an effort to push through to the Court Services just how important an active courthouse would be to Wicklow town.
The Courts Service maintain that it is their intention to extend the current courthouse and an adjoining site was acquired from Wicklow County Council for that purpose a number of years ago.
Wicklow is one of five county town venues which require substantial refurbishment or replacement of existing courthouse facilities.
It is possible that these five projects could be procured by way of a future Public Private Partnership (PPP) bundle when the necessary sites have been acquired.
Currently there are seven courthouses under construction through an existing PPP bundle and they will all be completed in 2017.