Vol. 3 No. 32
We will now take up Group 3, Vote 38.
I beg to move:—"That a sum not exceeding ninety-seven thousand three hundred pounds be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1924, to pay such of the salaries and expenses of the Supreme Court of Judicature as are not charged upon the Central Fund." (The sum of £55,000 had already been voted.)
In view of the changes, foreshadowed in the report which has been circulated from the Committee inquiring into the changes in the Judiciary, there is very little use commenting upon this Estimate in any way, because it is quite obvious that judging by even the small portion of the change carried out, it will entirely alter the whole form of this Estimate. The only item in the sub-head, to which I would care to direct any attention, is on page 105, under the heading, "Probate and Matrimonial, Principal Registry." It provides for eleven officers varying from one Registrar down to six second class clerks. That office probably, more than any other, in the Law Courts affects the whole country, because the clerks in that office have to deal with the granting of letters of Administration and Probate of Wills in cases of death. I understand that this office is at present very much undermanned owing to the resignations of some people who have gone away, and owing to a couple of deaths. Now, whethere the new changes are introduced or not it seems necessary that the bulk of the officers who are provided for in this Estimate, and whose numbers are, at present, considerably below the numbers provided for in this Estimate should, if possible, even if only by temporary appointments, be brought up, to the full complement, because they are performing duties, day in and day out, during the whole year. Other offices have slack times if the Courts are not sitting, and during the vacations, and so on, but people continue to die every day, and their wills have to be proved or letters of administration have to be granted in order that their estates may be administered, and the business of the concerns they left carried on. Therefore, this office, of all the offices in the courts, can least stand being undermanned.
Now, the local Registrar for the constituency represented, I think, by Deputy De Roiste—a very large district, indeed— recently died. I think the local Registrar who used to operate in Tirconaill either died or resigned, and the business of one of these offices has been transferred to Dublin, and has further congested the already congested office there. I venture to hope that the Minister, who has recognised in his Estimate that this office should be carried on, will turn his attention to the matter, and try to keep the staff, by some means or other, up to the necessary complement to fulfil the absolutely essential duties of the office. The business of this office must be carried on from day to day. Other things may wait, and you may allow other offices to run down in numbers awaiting the change, because, of course, there is not as much work in the Courts now as four or five years ago, and you can very well afford to run the present business with a diminished staff; but this is one of the offices in which the business is not diminished, and will not be, so long as you have people in the country and so long as there are deaths occurring, and therefore you cannot afford to run it with a diminished staff.
The Estimates, I note, in the bound volume, refer to salaries not charged on the Consolidated Fund. That is probably just a slip that might be corrected. I rise to get the mind of the Minister as to the effect of the changes that are in contemplation, and as to the costs of the Supreme Court. Does he anticipate there will be any saving in expenditure? I note there is in this Vote a net increase of £1,793 notwithstanding that, as compared with last year, the salaries and travelling expenses of the High Court of Appeal, £2101, are not included this year. I have no doubt it was thought undesirable to make any changes in the machinery pending the report of the Judiciary Committee, but one might hope that the necessity for an expenditure of three or four hundred pounds for train bearers would not continue, and would not appear in any future Estimate. I find in the Estimate items such as "Two train-bearers, Lord Justice of Appeal, £200; one train-bearer, Master of the Rolls, and one train-bearer for the office connected with the Judge in the Chancery Division," and so on. It may be that these persons were called train-bearers, and that they have really responsible duties, or that the title of train-bearers is merely a survival of an old title or an old name. If they have responsible duties, then I say they should receive more than £100 per year. I rather suspect that not only is the name a survival, but the function is also a survival of times that have passed, and that in the reorganisation of the Judiciary there will also be a reorganisation of the accessories.
May I ask if Vote 30 is being taken now as well as Vote 38?
No. Vote 38 only is being taken now.
Perhaps the Minister, in dealing with this matter, can give us, as nearly as he can, the date when he proposes to introduce the Bill in connection with the Dáil Courts. My views on the subject of Ministerial treatment of that question are pretty well known, and I do not think this is the moment to repeat them, but there are urgent reasons why that Bill should be introduced and passed rapidly. I should also appreciate from the Minister a statement as to the day when he expects to be able to introduce legislation to carry out the very valuable report of the Judiciary Committee. This, also, is a matter that can better be discussed when the Bill comes before us, and I hope it will come rapidly before us. I confine myself now to making this suggestion upon it, agreeing as I do with most of the recommendations that have been made which I think are well thought out and courageous, that steps should be taken to give us in Dublin what exists in London, a Commercial Court where commercial matters could be quickly settled without all the medieval superstitions of long-pleadings that go on in other Courts. I think one of the most useful items in the report of that Commission was a proposal to appoint a Master in Chambers to deal with minor matters. This suggestion is on the same lines of simplifying and hastening procedure. I notice, however, one curious omission in connection with the proposal to appoint these Masters in Chambers to do work that is now done by Judges, namely, that the work the Masters in London do, where they have the same system of law—the work upon which these Masters are mainly engaged is completely omitted from the list of the many things that the Masters should do in this country. I refer to the obtaining of speedy judgments, under what is called "Order 14," which would be the bulk of the work the masters ought to do and which would go a long way to simplify procedure in a matter which, in this country, is extremely badly managed. At present in this country, a citizen, even in a very simple case in which any sort of defence is put up, has to brief Counsel instead of leaving the matter to a Solicitor to do, as it ought to be left in nine cases out of ten. My main purpose in rising is to get from the Minister the intentions of the Government as to these two important Bills which I mentioned.
I will undertake to draw the attention of the officials of my Department to Deputy FitzGibbon's remarks with regard to the principal Probate Office and its staff. Steps are being taken to fill immediately the vacant office in Cork. The general question of the Courts staff is at the moment being taken up and has undergone a change within the last few weeks, there being a special official appointed in the Courts responsible to the Home Affairs Ministry and dealing with the entire question of establishment, the existing Judges having agreed to forego certain patronage which attached to them in the past. Deputy Johnson will be relieved to hear that the Train Bearer has been abolished. The Bill based on the report of the Judiciary Committee will, it is hoped, be introduced inside, possibly, three weeks, and about that date also the Bill winding up the affairs of the Dáil Courts will be introduced. It is regretted that it was not possible to introduce the latter Bill at an earlier stage, and we simply have to appeal to the consideration of Deputies and to fall back on what we have had so frequently to fall back upon in defence, the great pressure of work on Departments not fully staffed and not yet fully staffed—Departments, many of which did not exist to be taken over from the British administration and which had simply to be built up from the ground floor. That is why, at one period, there was something almost amounting to a lack of business here and why we now find ourselves rather flooded with a procession of Bills. It is simply that the Departments have been getting under way. They have been in course of being built up, and it was not possible to deal earlier with all the legislation which was well recognised to be urgently necessary. Certainly from my Department between this and the election there will probably come five or six Bills, all of which we would have been glad to deal with four or five or six months ago, if the machinery were there to consider and turn them out. But those two important Bills—the new Judiciary Bill and the Bill winding up the affairs of the Dáil Courts—will, it is hoped, be under consideration here in about three weeks time.
