Kerry's three coroners make the county one of the best served in Ireland, per head of population.
A recent public consultation on reforming the coroner's service highlights a huge disparity in coroner services nationwide.
In 2022, there was one coroner for every 52,000 (52,153) people in Kerry, compared to 210,000 (209,536) being served by one coroner in Limerick.
Kerry County Council was the only local authority to tender a written submission to the Department of Justice's public consultation on reforming the coroner's service.
This year, the council spent €371,000 for items such as coroner salaries, pathology and histology testing, state laboratory expenses, fees for witness attendance at inquests, and mortuary and undertaker fees.
Local authorities fund coroner services in their areas, except in Dublin, which is funded by the Department of Justice.
In 2022, Kerry's three coroners completed work on 928 cases, including 238 postmortem examinations and 64 inquests.
Submissions to the public consultation included calls for a national coroner service funded by a single government department.
Fianna Fáil councillor Michael Cahill said Kerry County Council has "paid out tens of millions of euros over the years" for the coroner's service, but government funding would allow the council focus its resources locally in Kerry.
Sinn Féin justice spokesperson, Kerry TD Pa Daly said his party is committed to reforming the coroner system.
He said he was disappointed he could not get an answer to a Dáil question as to how long families are waiting for inquests.
