Legislation was being prepared to establish a prisons board on a statutory basis, the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, said. He was speaking in the debate on the establishment of an independent court service which would assume what are now ministerial functions in relation to the workings of the courts.
The effect of the arrangements would be to introduce the most comprehensive and radical reform of the court administration since the foundation of the State, he said. A key element in the development of the new services would be the retention by the Minister of political accountability to the Oireachtas for the discharge by the new bodies of their functions.
