New figures show a big increase in the number of murder and rape cases coming before the courts.
Murder cases before the Central Criminal Court are up 25% last year, while rape cases went up by 10%.
But the Annual Report of the Courts Service shows that waiting times for such trials have gone down to around four months, compared to two years in 2002.
The report also shows that juries outside Dublin are more likely to acquit. With assault and robberies, offenders in the capital are nearly three times more likely to be convicted by a jury than those in the provinces.
On the civil side, the report has confirmed a huge reduction in the number of personal injury cases before the High Court since the setting up of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board.
These cases went down from over 15,000 in 2004 to just under 750 last year.
But increasing numbers of judicial review, asylum, extradition and company liquidation cases means that court business has only been reduced by about 2% overall.
In family law, divorce and judicial separation cases have increased slightly overall with the majority of applications being made by women.
But the number of cases involving children being taken into care by the Health Service Executive has more than doubled to 975.
