Law Society’s traffic-light justice assessment
A report from the Law Society’s Centre for Justice and Law Reform shows comparatively high levels of public trust in the gardaí, courts, and judiciary in Ireland.
The inaugural Justice Indicators report, however, also finds that per capita spending on the courts in Ireland is 25% less than the average on Council of Europe (CoE) countries.
The report, which draws on more than 100 national and international data sources, provides an assessment of the performance of core elements of Ireland’s justice system compared with other jurisdictions.
Using a traffic-light system, the indicators evaluate the resourcing, effectiveness, and efficiency of the Irish justice system across four critical areas: trust, policing, courts, and prisons.
‘Red’ means that Ireland deviates by more than 10% from the EU or CoE average, ‘amber’ means a deviation of between 3% and 10%, and ‘green’ means that Ireland is on a par with, or deviates by up to 3% from, the averages.
‘Reliable data’
Law Society President Rosemarie Loftus said that reform of the justice system should be underpinned by reliable data and rigorous analysis.
She added that the organisation hoped that the research would help all policymakers in the allocation of resources, and support the development of fair, transparent, and effective justice policies.
Law Society Director General Mark Garrett said that the report aimed to provide policymakers with reliable and objective evidence to inform decision-making.
“The report makes it clear that there is an urgent need for more comprehensive and transparent data collection and reporting across the Irish justice system,” he stated.
The Centre for Justice and Law Reform has made 16 recommendations to improve data collection and reporting in the justice sector.
70% trust in gardaí
Among the ‘green’ indicators in the report are those on public trust in the State’s main justice institutions.
According to the OECD, 70% of Irish people reported trusting the gardaí in 2023, which was higher than the average of 63%.
Other OECD figures from 2023 show that 69% of the Irish population trusted the courts – well above the average of 54%.
Eurobarometer studies have also found that the Irish population rated the independence of the judiciary and the courts between 71% and 74% from 2020 to 2025. The equivalent EU average ranged from 52% to 56%.
Red indicators for courts
Despite the relatively positive scores on trust, the report allocates several red lights to other indicators linked to the courts system.
It finds that Ireland’s per capita spend on the courts in 2022 was €38.23, which was 25% less than the European average of €50.70. The spending figure has been lower than the European average every year since 2010.
Case-disposition times – the average length of court proceedings – are longer than European benchmarks. The data indicates that, in 2022, Ireland’s average of 541 days was more than three times the average European estimate of 168 days.
Ireland’s figure fell to 486 days in 2024, but the report says that gaps in data limit a full assessment of Ireland’s performance in this area.
Backlog
The report also shows that the Irish courts cleared fewer cases than the number of new cases initiated each year from 2019 to 2024. This means that the backlog of unresolved matters increased each year.
Based on 2022 Council of Europe data, the 2025 EU Justice Scoreboard identified Ireland as having the lowest clearance rate among EU member states.
The research also shows that Ireland has consistently had fewer judges per 100,000 people than other European countries – recording the lowest figure of all Council of Europe members in 2022.
Homicide rate below average
On prisons, the report gives red lights to Ireland’s performance on spending, remand rates, and the average length of prison sentence.
There is an amber indicator for Ireland’s prison-occupancy rate, which was below the EU average until 2021, but had topped 123% by December 2025, meaning that the prison population exceeded the system’s capacity.
On crime, the report gives a green indicator for the homicide rate; at 0.64 per 100,000 people in 2023, it was well below the EU average of 1.04.
There are red indicators, however, for sexual offences and offences linked to theft, which have both been consistently above the EU average in recent years.