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‘Paper-heavy’ litigation era will end in 2026

Public-sector reform magazine Eolas has reported on the recent ‘profound structural shift’ in the justice sector.

At a December round table hosted by the Courts Service at its Phoenix House, Dublin 7, HQ, leaders from across the judiciary, prison service, and legal profession detailed how technology is fundamentally altering the machinery of Irish law.

The sector is moving from the reactive ‘emergency measures’ of the pandemic to a sophisticated, cloud-first digital ecosystem, the meeting heard.

Cloud transition

Owen Harrison of the Courts Service identified the transition to cloud computing as the bedrock of modernisation.

This shift has facilitated the rollout of the Unified Case Management System (UCMS), a multi-year project designed to replace dozens of legacy systems with a single ‘source of truth.’

Already operational in the High Court and Supreme Court, the UCMS is scheduled for a nationwide expansion across District and Circuit family courts throughout 2026.

This system is not simply an internal database.

It underpins a new public portal that allows for:

• Electronic filing,
• Digital signatures, and
• Automated notifications — effectively ending the era of 'paper-heavy' litigation.

Donna Creaven, Irish Prison Service IT director, told the meeting that virtual court appearances, which began as a pandemic necessity, have become a permanent efficiency tool.

360 virtual court appearances weekly

The Prison Service now facilitates over 380 such appearances and 60 legal consultations every week.

"This has fundamentally changed our operations," Creaven said, citing a significant reduction in the logistical burden of prisoner escorts and the preservation of prison routines.

Mr Justice Liam Kennedy said video conferencing was a ‘game-changer’ for procedural hearings, such as call-overs, which previously forced solicitors to wait hours for minutes of court time. 

Paul Spring of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), warned however, that the ‘enormous volume’ of technical data now required for modern trials brought its own complexity.

From social media logs to CCTV and body-worn camera footage, the sheer scale of digital evidence is testing the storage and processing capacities of both the state and private defence firms, the meeting heard.

DPP Catherine Pierse has called for a systemic re-examination of disclosure policies to handle this 'relentless growth' in data, noting that a standard file today is exponentially more complex than one from just a decade ago.

Key technological milestones (2025/26)