As Judge Gillian Hussey steps down, she is critical of the condition of Kilmainham courthouse and how the legal system treats staff and those who come before the courts.
Kilmainham courthouse is a nineteenth century listed building, half of which is condemned, partly held up by scaffolding and infested with rats and pigeons.
Gillian Hussey retires today after being the only judge in Kilmainham courthouse for the last sixteen years. Free to speak her mind on her last day on the bench, Judge Hussey is not only angry about the conditions she has had to work in, she also believes that the people who come before the courts could be treated better.
She's been a judge here for the past 16 years meeting out twentieth century justice in a nineteenth century building of Dickensian squalor.
Judge Hussey recalls a rat running across her chamber in 1988 resulting in the closure of the court for three and a half months. However, the courtroom simply got a lick of paint and none of the major problems with the building were addressed. Commenting on the state of the building, Judge Hussey says,
If you give people the pits, they get the pits.
Many of those who have come before her over the years have problems with drug dependency and Judge Hussey believes that treatment with methadone is ineffective. She says that sometimes they ask can they go to prison to be detoxed but this is not the purpose of incarceration.
Judge Hussey is also a firm believer in parental responsibility and says it is not the responsibility of the Gardaí to be look after young people.
If the court services and the Department of Justice do not care enough to take care of a building of such historical importance, then what does it say about their attitude to the people who work there and the people whose lives every day are permanently changed there.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 22 March 2002. The reporter is Paul Reynolds.
