Hi Kathy, I wanted to try meet with you at the Boston conference, but missed the time you were on meet 'n greet duty!

I saw a lot of comments, on several forums, about you regarding the situation here in Ireland, with the Dublin courts moving to ER, or DAR as they're calling it here, and I just wanted you to know that as a reporter working here in the courts, and more importantly one that actually knows what is happening on the ground, that the negative comments were totally unfounded.

The court system was going to move to DAR regardless of what anyone said or did and Merrill were as entitled as anyone else to pitch for the contract, so well done to them.

I'm not saying that I agree with Digital Audio Recording or anyone promoting the use of DAR over the stenographic method, quite the reverse in fact. However, the situation here was different, in that it was never a case of someone promoting DAR to the court administration. The court administrators decided that DAR would be cheaper and they put out a tender, end of story.

On a purely business level Merrill did what any other company would do, they pitched for work for their staff. It's not the work that any of us want to see here in the courts and it will put the reporters out of business, including Merrrill's own, but that was no doing of Merrill.

So, really all I wanted to say was that I totally reject the comments made against you in this regard, and I hope I've cleared up what actually happened.

I also want to point out to anyone else who may read this comment that I am NOT a Merrill reporter and never have been, Ireland is a small place and we all work alongside each other here.

Hi Kathy,

It's nice to see you here. There's not a lot of people here from Pennsylvania, and if I remember correctly you're in Pittsburgh. I believe we met years ago when I was still a student and we toured VITAC.