Tens of thousands court summonses are backlogged in the Irish court system because the pandemic prevented them from being dealt with.
The Courts Service said the delays happened because the numbers of people in court needed to be reduced because of Covid-19. Ms McEntee said that huge work has been done to reduce the backlog from a peak in October of 122,000 summonses to the current 95,000. Compared to other years the backlog of 95,000 summonses is unprecedented. The Courts Service confirmed backlogs do not usually occur as summonses are dealt with continuously from month to month and from one year to the next.
Tom O'Malley, senior lecturer in law at NUI Galway, says the cases arising from the summonses could go ahead in principle.