20,000 court cases heard in Kildare last year

The sitting district court judge in Kildare Desmond Zaidan heard 20,000 during 2024.

The judge made the comment during a hearing at Naas District court.

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It followed a comment by an applicant during a family law hearing that it had taken some time for that case to be heard.

Judge Zaidan quoted the figure and added that the next busiest judge dealt with some 10,000 cases.

He said this demonstrated the need for a second district court judge to be appointed to County Kildare.

The vast bulk of district court cases are dealt with in Naas and a small number of cases are heard at the regular sitting in Athy.

There was a time when Newbridge, Kilcock, Blessington and even Dunlavin had courthouses to deal with cases arising in those areas, but all of these cases are centralised to be disposed of at Naas Courthouse.

Judge Zaidan previously stated that TDs are "quite happy" to increase the number of Dáil deputies in individual constituencies on the basis of population increases that have taken place “but they won’t see the wood for the trees to appoint more judges.”

An extra seat will be added to the Kildare North constituency, which elected five TDs for the first time in the general election last November. The constituency was described as the second fastest growing in Ireland.

He said he deals with 1,000 or more cases a week including ex-parte applications (mainly family law cases).

He added that despite the population increase in the area, there is still just a single District Court judge and this has not changed since the 1950s.

He said that when “things go wrong everybody will be diving for cover.” 

But, he said, people will be blaming him if cases aren’t processed.