All rise and support local Courthouse!
Thursday, 9 February 2012
A public meeting will take place this Wednesday to discuss the future of Limavady Courthouse. Phillip Kingston, President of the Chamber of Trade and Commerce, is joined by Mark McGerty, Derek McAleese and Christine O'Brien in showing their opposition to
THE future of Limavady Courthouse will be debated this week as local representatives and members of the public prepare to meet with Northern Ireland Courts & Tribunals Service (NICTS) officials. Among those who have vowed to attend the meeting is local solicitor David Brewster who this week raged at figures detailing the amount of money spent by government departments on press and public relations officers.
Mr Brewster voiced his anger at the money being spent on press communications when the local Courthouse, seen as a vital public amenity in the borough, is facing closure following the reduction in public spending.
Through Assembly questions put forward by TUV leader Jim Allister, it was disclosed that a total of 167 people worked within the Assembly's information service, at a total cost of £4,477,624 per year.
A further 14 are employed by a Government Advertising Unit and another seven work in the editorial department of the government website NI Direct. The figures do not include staff employed in the assembly's press team nor the cost of communications officers in most quangos.
Mr Brewster fumed: "To see the Department of Justice, for example, spend £677,391 per year to pay 24 pr and communications staff is an outrage. The department is calling for five local courthouses in Northern Ireland, including Limavady, to be closed in order to save money yet hundreds of thousands of pounds are squandered on press and pr officers. The number of people employed for this purpose is extremely excessive and surely cannot be justified.
“To close our courthouse while continuing to allow this excessive amount of money to waste away is an insult to the people of this borough and I hope that this is an issue which will be addressed sooner rather than later.
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