The chief executive of the Courts Service Angela Denning has said that the service is currently conducting a number of trials of artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
The tools being tested include a guidance retrieval chatbot, systems to help judges interrogate large document sets, a proposal to extract information for judges from digital audio recordings, and a tool to support interpretation needs in court.
Appearing before the Oireachtas Committee on Artificial Intelligence, Ms Denning said judges will always remain responsible for their decisions.
"The use of GenAI on trusted databases can be a useful supplementary tool in some contexts but it cannot replace the judgement, empathy and ethical responsibility of judges in the performance of their judicial role," she said.
Answering questions from Sinn Féin TD Darren O'Rourke, Ms Denning said the judges' job is to use their judgement, knowledge of the law, and experience to filter through the circumstances of cases and legal submissions.
"At the end of the day, the human will still be there - we are not going to have a hologram judge," she said.
Fine Gael TD James Geoghegan asked Ms Denning about the progress of IT improvements at the Courts Service over recent years.
"The hole that we were in was very deep, so it is not a simple job to lift yourself from that digital deficit to where we are today," she said.
"It has required significant investment, we had to completely rebuild our capacity and capability internally," Ms Denning added.
Chief Information Officer at the Courts Service Owen Harrison was asked about the AI systems they would like to adopt.
"You can't put AI on top of paper and we are still drowning in paper," Mr Harrison said.
"We need to stay the course and digitise the rest of the journeys through the courts," he said.
"Once you have the digital foundations, once the data is right, then it becomes easier to do responsible AI on top," he added.
Responding to questions from Fianna Fáil TD Naoise Ó Cearúil, Mr Harrison described cybersecurity as an "arms race" because hackers are becoming more sophisticated.
"We're going to have to start using AI more and more ourselves as part of our cybersecurity defence to be able to meet the arms race because the industry moves very fast to exploit vulnerabilities," he said.
Responding to a question from Committee Chair Fianna Fáil TD Malcolm Byrne, Mr Harrison said they are seeing extremely high levels of cyberattack activity from Russia and China.
"I think they attack everyone, I don't think we are that special. I think they will attack any public or private body," he told the Committee.
