The Chief Justice has called on legislators to produce clearer and less complex legislation to make legal proceedings easier and quicker.
Mr Justice Frank Clarke said that legislators in Europe and in Leinster House sometimes produce unclear or unduly complex legislation, producing arguments that take a lot of effort to resolve.
He said if this continued it meant that projects were going to be held up, especially in the area of environmental and planning legislation.
The Chief Justice said a significant part of the solution to the political demand for cases to be resolved more quickly was the production of clear and well worked out legislation at European and national level.
Otherwise, he said, there would continue to be cases that would not be clear-cut and would have to be referred to the European Court.
This meant there would continue to be projects that would suffer by being held up for too long, even though at the end of the day, they may successfully clear all hurdles.
Mr Justice Clarke said this was not a "cry" or complaint about any particular piece of legislation as that was not a judge's business.
But he said it was a cry for clearer legislation that would make the resolution of litigation easier and quicker.
He also added that if legislators kept amending legislation, which was happening a lot in recent times, then constant and shifting uncertainty was created.
Minister for Justice, Charlie Flanagan receiving the court service report. Re judicial appointments he says 15 judges were appointed last year, so far this year, 16 have been appointed. pic.twitter.com/d0LgYqYIcf
— Orla O'Donnell (@Orlaodo) July 17, 2018
The Chief Justice made his remarks at the launch of the Annual Report of the Courts Service for 2017.
The report shows that the Court of Appeal is receiving more appeals than it can hear each year and the current waiting time for an appeal in a civil case to be heard is 20 months.
In other statistics, the report shows the number of bankruptcy applications decreased last year, as did the number of possession orders sought in the Circuit Court.
The number of possession orders sought in 2017 was 878, a 19% decrease on the 2016 figure of 1088. In all, the Courts Service said there had been a 52% decrease in new possession cases over the last four years.
There was an increase in the number of murder and attempted murder offences tried in the courts, rising from 25 in 2016 to 41 last year.
The amount of rape trials heard in the Central Criminal Court increased by 22% from 59 in 2016 to 77 last year.
