The wait for justice: Donegal court delays laid bare - Donegal Daily

Donegal has some of the longest court waiting times in the country, new figures have shown.People waiting for civil and criminal trials in Donegal face waits of...

Donegal has some of the longest court waiting times in the country, new figures have shown.

People waiting for civil and criminal trials in Donegal face waits of up to two years.

In the Circuit Courts in this county, the 104-week waiting time for civil trials is the highest recorded in the country.

The highest civil appeals waiting time, 52 weeks, was also recorded in Donegal.

The Circuit Courts all now operate out of the Letterkenny courts office.

The figures for the District and Circuit Courts were published in the Courts Service Annual Report 2025, which states that the numbers represent waiting times across the year rather than a snapshot taken at the end of last year.

In terms of criminal trials, the Letterkenny figure of 104 weeks was joint fourth-highest, behind Longford at 126 weeks, Carrick-on-Shannon at 117 weeks and Sligo at 108 weeks. Monaghan also recorded 104 weeks.

Of the six measures outlined in the report, Letterkenny had the highest waiting time nationally for two, and was among the longest waits in a further three.

The 104-week civil trial waiting time was the highest recorded among the 26 Circuit Court offices listed, and Donegal also had the highest civil appeals waiting time, at 52 weeks. The next highest was Carrick-on-Shannon at 38 weeks.

For criminal appeals, Letterkenny's 48-week wait was second-highest nationally, behind only Carrick-on-Shannon at 65 weeks.

For family law matters before the Circuit Court, data outlines a wait time of 41 weeks in Donegal - considerably lower than the civil and criminal waiting times.

Donegal was also not among the longest family law waiting times nationally. Tralee recorded 80 weeks, Limerick 74 weeks, Dundalk 66 weeks, Castlebar 63 weeks and Ennis 62 weeks.

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The Courts Service says that family waiting times are generally shorter than civil waiting times because family law cases are given priority. In most circuits, consent matters are heard at the next session, with a waiting time of three months or less, while additional sittings can be arranged for longer cases.

The report defines the Circuit family measure as the time from the date of issue to the final order in a case, and says family law figures relate to all Circuit Family matters, including divorce, marriage exemption, judicial separation, co-habitation and other matters.

The Courts Service notes that civil waiting times can be affected by the priority given to criminal and family law cases where court resources are limited.

It also says the nature of civil business has changed, with fewer short cases and an increase in longer contested cases. Longer cases tend to have longer waiting times and can therefore distort the numbers. Additional sittings are sometimes allocated to circuits to deal with longer cases.

That context is particularly relevant to Letterkenny, where the 104-week civil trial figure is substantially higher than the waiting times recorded in most other Circuit Court offices.

In the District Court, the 35-week wait for guardianship matters under the Letterkenny Courts Office was the highest recorded among the District Court offices, while Letterkenny's 56-week figure for adult charge sheets was also the highest in the table.

Letterkenny’s 33-week adult-summons figure was the third-highest, behind Dublin at 57 weeks and Blanchardstown at 35 weeks.

For Letterkenny, the report records a 57-week waiting time for child-care cases, 13 weeks for domestic violence and 17 weeks for maintenance matters.

For the Donegal District Court office, the figures were 34 weeks for child care, six weeks for domestic violence, 10 weeks for guardianship and 36 weeks for maintenance.

Civil applications stood at eight weeks, adult charge sheets at 24 weeks and adult summonses at 20 weeks.

The 36-week maintenance figure for the Donegal District was the third-highest in the national table, behind Tullamore at 86 weeks and Sligo at 65 weeks.

Donegal's 34-week child-care figure was also significant, although substantially below the longest waits recorded nationally, including Roscommon at 115 weeks, Monaghan at 100 and both Castlebar and Wexford at 98 weeks.

The numbers are not directly comparable as a single overall measure of court delay. The Courts Service uses different measures for the different categories, and says the 2025 tables contain a mixture of average and median values.