The Courts Service Annual Report for 2002, which was published today, showed that the number of murder cases received by the court was up from 31 in 2001 to 55 last year.
The number of rape cases brought before the court was down for the third year in a row, from a high of 130 in 1999 to 82 last year.
However, the report points out that despite the court's increased workload, the waiting times for murder and rape cases being brought to trial at the Central Criminal Court has been falling.
The average waiting time for such cases has been halved from two years to 12 months.
Last October, an extra four judges were appointed to deal with the increase in cases coming before the Special Criminal Court and it is planned to hold extra sittings of the court in September to deal with rape cases.
There was a dramatic fall last year in the number of High Court assault cases, down from 1,218 in 2001 to just 311.
The number of personal injury cases in the High Court was also down sharply from 12,335 to 10,641 last year.
Outside of Dublin the highest number of new cases was recorded in the Limerick Circuit Court area with 760 news cases in 2002. Cork had the second highest number with 690, followed by Galway with 658.
