That does not happen very often. This is a point to which the Minister should give his attention. He should see what is actually happening on the ground. We have seen from recent court reports that the system is jammed because of appeals, the issue of licences and so on. This is an area where computerisation would help.
It is important that the Garda are not involved unnecessarily in court cases. They should be on the beat as far as possible, not tied up with appeals which are only making use of the system. When the Minister examines the criminal legal aid scheme he will find that appeals can be used as a delaying device. I cannot go into this in detail at the moment because I am only allowed make a passing reference to it but this is another area which should be looked at.
The kind of cases for which the Minister needs this Bill through in a hurry, by 3 March, deal particularly with tax appeals. The Minister might look at the way these appeals operate. As a result of the 1985 Act which altered the boundaries, a number of things are happening. One of the effects of this Act has been that the Howth court closed and any provision of a court in Howth would be a matter for the county. This means the county would have to make financial provision for this court whereas in the city of Dublin the courts come directly under the Department of Justice. I would like the Minister to tell us the extent to which that occurs within the county. Is it only to provide court facilities? Does it happen in any of the other major towns like Galway or Waterford? What does the Minister think of this arrangement? I am very interested in this because Howth has just been shifted into the county and has lost its court. The reply I had from the former Minister was that it is up to the local authority if they want to provide a court there. The situation in relation to Dublin is that the Department of Justice will provide a court.
What is the situation in Galway? As I understand it they come directly under the county. This has implications for the provision of the facilities in that areas as, indeed, it does in other areas throughout the country. Would the Minister let us know what is the position in relation to that aspect of the administration of the courts and what plans he has for future development in that area.
With regard to the detail of the Bill, on the one hand it adds this extra section to the schedule covering Galway County Borough. If the Minister of State, Deputy Collins, would watch the deals he might make as carefully as we feel we have to watch the small Bills that go through here, then the deals made by Ministers might be a little safer in the long run. Let us not sneer at the Opposition for checking in detail what is happening in a Bill, however small the Bill may be or however hurriedly the Government may want to put it through the House. Section 1 (1) (b) gives the Minister power in future to add or subtract, to alter the composition of a High Court circuit by adding to or removing from the circuit a county or counties. Would the Minister tell us if he has any intention at this stage of adding or removing other counties or changing or altering any other counties because this provision gives him the power to do that, which he has not at the moment?
I take it that the Act will require the Minister to put the regulations before the House in any event and that will also apply to paragraph (aa) of subsection (b) of this section and therefore any change he makes will have to come before the House to be dealt with. The other sections of the Bill deal with the retrospective aspects of this legislation and they attempt to highlight the point I raised at the beginning, that is that it is retrospective legislation and the Government are seeking to be covered in the Bill. Subsection (2) (b) states:
A notice of appeal served before such passing in respect of a judgment or order referred to in paragraph (a) of this subsection shall not be invalid by reason only of the fact that an appeal town, within the meaning aforesaid, for the County Borough of Galway did not stand specified or that paragraph (a) of this subsection was not in force, at the time of such service.
This indicates quite clearly the retrospective problems the Government may have in relation to this Bill. I mention it to emphasise the fact that it is preferable that these matters be dealt with at the time they arise in the first instance because they had to arise on two occasions previously. The first occasion was when the Act was passed in 1985 and secondly, and probably more specifically, when the order for the County Borough of Galway under the 1985 Act was made by the Minister for the Environment on 1 January 1986. It must have been abundantly clear at that time, even if it was in any way covered up by events in the previous more important Act. The Minister for the Environment must have asked himself if he should be making an order in this area. The Minister for Justice has not made any particular reference to that retrospective aspect of it.