During a centenary celebration of the Irish Courts, Mr Justice Donal O'Donnell announced that the court had reached a preliminary agreement to conduct a trial project that would regularly broadcast the court's proceedings.

For the first time, in October 2017, RTÉ television carried court proceedings virtually live.

Many of the court's most significant rulings have now been made available for public viewing. Nonetheless, this new effort will be the first to livestream the arguments' hearing.

Justice O'Donnell stated that he and his colleagues believed that arguments in cases involving matters of public concern should be made available to the public as much as practicable if the Supreme Court hears legal arguments on those matters.

On the current agenda, however, is not the broadcasting of criminal court or other judicial proceedings on television.

“A very clear distinction” exists, the Chief Justice said, between hearings in the Supreme Court and hearings in other matters, especially in trial courts. He declared that he would not expect hearings in other courts to be “or should be” streamed or televised.

The Chief Justice made it clear that the proceedings were “not intended to be a very elaborately produced service,” citing a lack of funding to support a comprehensive state-of-the-art video service similar to what is offered in some other Supreme Courts.