Independent TD Carol Nolan asked the minister why she had decided not to increase the number of judges, and also whether the number of judges should be reduced over time given the creation of the Court of Appeal in 2014.

There are currently nine ordinary judges of the Supreme Court despite the number being set in legislation at 10. It was expanded by two shortly before the establishment of the Court of Appeal.

Mrs McEntee said it had “become practice over the past years to maintain that vacancy” and the court itself had told the government its existing resources “were sufficient to manage the workload on hand” — thought that position “is being kept under constant review”.

She pointed out that the Judicial Planning Working Group had not recommended additional judges for the Supreme Court in its final report published in February 2023.

There was no detailed analysis of the Supreme Court in that report. “The Supreme Court had indicated that, unlike the other courts, it was not inviting the Working Group to recommend additional numbers of judges at this stage,” it said.

Mrs McEntee said: “The Working Group further recommended that a formal judicial resource-planning model should be put in place in the medium-term to assess judicial resource requirements across all courts, including the Supreme Court.

“Work is underway in my Department to establish such a model.”