Courts Service has spent €166,000 on rent since Tuam courthouse closed

The town’s courthouse building was closed in 2005 for health and safety reasons and has laid empty ever since. There have been periodic calls for the building to be redeveloped.

The €166,000 bill for rented accommodation - working out to around €1,200 per month - was revealed in a Freedom of Information request to the newspaper and has been welcomed by councillors.

Fianna Fáil Cllr Donagh Killilea told the Tribune: “We feared the worst but it is great to hear that the Courts Service have been able to source rented accommodation relatively cheaply - but that does not mean that they should continue to rent indefinitely as the old courthouse is lying idle and in a state of dilapidation.”

He added: “It is vital that the court sittings are retained in Tuam and it is hugely important that the vacant old courthouse is renovated and brought back into use.”

From 2005-10, the Courts Service paid €75,000 to rent Tuam’s town hall for court sittings. Since then, it has hired the chapel of the old Grove Hospital, for which it will have paid €91,000 to the Health Service Executive (HSE) by the end of the lease in September.

At the end of the year, court sittings will move to a warehouse building in the private sector. Work to adapt that building to make it suitable for court sittings will take place in coming weeks.

Since the courthouse building closed in 2005, the Courts Service has spent around €25,000 on its upkeep.