Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 23 Jun 1936

Vol. 63 No. 1

In Committee on Finance. - Vote 35—District Court.

Acting-Minister for Justice (Mr. Boland)

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £25,836 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1937, chun pé cuid de Thuarastail agus de Chostaisí na Cúirte Dúithche nách muirear ar an bPrímh-Chiste. (Uimh. 10 de 1924, ailt 70 agus 76; Uimh. 27 de 1926, ailt 49 agus 50 agus Uimh. 15 de 1928, alt 13.)

That a sum not exceeding £25,836 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, 1937, for such of the Salaries and Expenses of the District Court as are not charged on the Central Fund. (No. 10 of 1924, secs. 70 and 76; No. 27 of 1926, secs. 49 and 50 and No. 15 of 1928, sec. 13.)

There is practically no change in this Vote. The Justices of the Dublin Metropolitan Court have made representations that the efficiency of their staff has decreased to an alarming extent, owing mainly to the fact that as soon as new entrants have had two or three years' experience in the office, and begun to be really useful, they leave the office, either by passing the examination for some higher grade in the Civil Service, such as the Customs and Excise or by getting transferred to some other Department. This is a very interesting example of a difficulty which is well known in the Civil Service. On the one hand there is general agreement that the number of different grades and classes in the service should be kept as low as possible, so as to allow of free transfer from one office to another and to reduce the number of recruiting examinations. On the other hand, the free flow of transfers has very embarrassing consequences as in the present case. Pre-war, the Dublin Metropolitan Court Clerks were a separate class recruited by a special examination and when a man got in there he had to stay there until he died or retired. Whatever fault might be found with this system it produced an efficient staff. Under the Free State régime the theory of reducing the number of separate classes was brought into play and recruits for the Dublin Metropolitan Court were taken from the ordinary examination for clerical officers. The tendency of men thus recruited to leave the office after a few years soon became evident. We tried to check it by putting the men on something better than the clerical scale but even then the men continued to go. Part of the explanation is that a good deal of the work brings the men into contact with a rather unpleasant side of life. The Department of Finance has now been induced to recognise that this is a case where the lesser evil is to restore the old Departmental class and it is hoped to hold an examination within the next six months under the auspices of the Civil Service Commissioners from which examination the successful candidates will pass into the Metropolitan Court Offices with the knowledge that they will have to stay there.

Mr. Dillon

That raise a very interesting point. Surely if this service is of a more arduous character than service commanding similar remuneration in other branches of the State employment, the Minister ought to consider putting the officials in that particular branch of the Department of Justice on a more advantageous salary basis. It is all very well to say that there will be more suitable arrangements, such as a special examination, but that is simply reverting to the principle of drawing on an over-stocked labour market to get cheap labour. While it is quite true that an advertisement inviting applications for that class at 30/- a week would get them and probably from highly educated men who cannot get anything better, surely we ought to have some cognisance of the work to be done. Seeing that persons who have entered the service try to get out as soon as they can and as the Department recognises that contact with the very distressing side of life that it brings people into is a disadvantage, the proper way to meet that is to pay a little more. I suggest that the Minister should reconsider the Departmental decision in regard to that matter, and perhaps look into the complaints that these clerks are making. Perhaps he might send for them and ask why it was that they were always so anxious to leave that service and to go elsewhere. That might help him to understand the situation as far as could be expected in the special circumstances obtaining, as we fully recognise that he is only acting as temporary Minister for Justice.

There is another matter with which I do not expect the Minister to deal now, but I mention it in order that the attention of the Department may be directed to it. A good deal of doubt seems to exist amongst District Court clerks as to the reason why they are not pensionable officers. Some of them are pensionable. I would like the Minister to say in express terms if he is prepared to establish any district Court clerks who on their part are prepared to submit to transfer to any part of Saorstát Eireann, as established officers, but, recognising that family circumstances might make it inconvenient for some of them to move about as freely as ordinary Civil Servants would be required, leaving those who did not want to be liable to be moved as unestablished officers on the appropriate scale of pay. If the Minister makes that offer I think he is putting an end to the legitimate complaint of District court clerks. As long as they are willing to conform to the requirements of Government service, but are denied establishment, I think they have legitimate grounds of complaint. I would be glad if the Minister could deal with the question.

Mr. Boland

As to the last point, I believe a lot of the clerks are only part-time. Deputy Dillon realises that?

Mr. Dillon

Yes.

Mr. Boland

Of course it is not suggested that they should be made pensionable.

Mr. McGilligan

How many of them would that apply to? In the provincial areas there are 137 unestablished District Court clerks. How many of these are part-time?

Mr. Boland

About 100, I am told.

Mr. McGilligan

I want to get the difference between unestablished and part-time clerks. Part-time means, I take it, that they are occupied at some other work for portion of the week?

Mr. Boland

It means that they do not give the full working week to the duties of this office.

Mr. Dillon

I suggest to the Minister that there are two ways of dealing with that. One is the way that has at present been widely adopted, namely, as ordinary wastage occurs and districts become vacant, to amalgamate the districts and make the officers whole-time. I quite see that in some districts there is not sufficient work for a whole-time officer, and where you have such part-time officers you could not establish them, because it would be difficult to assess their pensions and matters of that kind. Would the Minister say that it is his intention to amalgamate districts as vacancies arise with a view to making all these officers established officers?

Mr. Boland

All I can say on the matter is that it is being inquired into. I could not make a definite statement on that point. There may be reasons of which I am unaware why that cannot be done. As to the other point, it is not this Department, as Deputy Dillon is aware, that decides salaries. There will be a scale, at any rate, somewhat different from the present scale, but even where something better than the present scale was offered, it did not succeed in keeping people, who had an opportunity of going into the general service, from doing so. I expect that in future, when appointments are made as a result of examinations the terms of which have been definitely advertised, the candidates who are successful will realise where they are going. Anyone who competes will do so knowing what the prospects are, and I do not think they will have very much grievance then. Those who enter the general service naturally have the right, and will avail of it, to look for advancement to some other branch. I do not think there is much prospect of getting any very big increase in salaries. Whatever the Department of Justice may think on that question, there is another Department which has to have a say on it.

Mr. McGilligan

The Minister has told us of his dilemma. I do not know that this has been given an adequate amount of consideration, because it is an old-standing problem, but it is just possible, in the casual way in which it has been brought forward, that the House can be satisfied that a proper method has been adopted for dealing with it. The Minister's dilemma is that if you allow movement from one grade to another you deplete these District Courts services of the capitalised value they get after a certain number of years. Alternatively, if you are going to close down on any Department from which there is no promotion, or no great chance of promotion, you will have the old conditions amongst a large number of people—that is to say, they will have to remain in touch with a lower type of life. People have gone into this service in the past, but in the past there was a chance of promotion. Now you are going to close down a man's career to this type of work without any increase of salary. You are going to close him down for a lifetime to this sordid and rather meaner type of work to which the Minister referred——

Mr. Boland

I did not say a mean type of work.

Mr. McGilligan

Well, then, a sordid type of work. They are to be constantly in touch with certain sordid elements of the community, and the persons you are going to recruit for the future will obviously not be as good as their predecessors. If it were not for the fact that the labour market is over-stocked, as Deputy Dillon stated, that people will take anything, no matter what conditions they are brought in touch with, it would be very difficult indeed to get suitable candidates for these posts. I suggest to the Minister that if he is taking this step, it should be taken in full recognition of the fact that the result is likely to be the recruiting of a less desirable type of person. If we get an equally good class as before, it is because that equally good class has no other way of marketing its labour.

I have often wondered at the attitude shown to this old-time problem. Right from the beginning of the Courts of Justice Act, 1924, there was this tendency apparent everywhere. One does not mind if the Minister for Finance, in his desire to make certain savings, tries—sometimes seriously, sometimes not so seriously—to restrict payments and to bring about conditions which lead to recruitment of a less good type of person. One does not mind that coming from the Ministry of Finance or from the Executive Council faced with a mass of debt, faced with a decaying trade and an accumulation of payments for services of one kind or another, but one can always be surprised at the Department of Justice agreeing with this tendency. The tendency to which I refer was that the district justices were always regarded as officers on a very definitely lower level than any of the other members of the judiciary. They are marked out by a distinct name. They are marked out by having peculiar conditions of tenure, with these peculiar conditions of tenure being carried forward into the new Courts of Justice Bill. There has been a tendency to regard them and to segregate them as a part of the judiciary which is not protected by constitutional provisions. I cannot understand that attitude of mind. Anybody who knows anything about the duties of district justices must find it difficult to follow that mental attitude. District justices have to deal with a mass of work which calls for the exercise of very special qualities.

As far as legal knowledge is concerned, there are not a tremendous number of fine points of law to be decided, but the district justices as a whole, and the clerks who attend these courts come into contact with greater masses of the population than either the Circuit Courts, the High Courts or the Supreme Courts. There is required in the District Court a far greater degree of understanding of the lives of people of a certain type, people, perhaps of a sordid type. There is required a far greater degree of humanity and a far greater appreciation of the circumstances under which these people live. There is not one district justice who does not feel called upon to seek advice in respect to the people with whom he has to deal from the clerks who are grouped about him in the District Courts. I find that so far from their being prejudiced by the peculiar circumstances under which they work, they do rise superior to these conditions, and one finds a very human outlook in all the proceedings in these courts, which adds considerably to the value of the work of the courts.

I believe myself there is apparent here again the tendency that was observable since 1924, to degrade the standard of these courts and everybody and everything attached to them. I think it is about time that that should be stopped. I do not know whether the Acting-Minister has ever seen the report which has been received in his Department of the work of the district justices. These men were probably the first of the judiciary who had to face out to the old, troubled conditions. They were the people who were first and foremost attacked. Right through —there have been one or two exceptions, but these exceptions merely prove the general rule, and are so glaringly few as not to call for comment— the general conduct of these courts when one comes to look into the matter is beyond any praise which could be given to them. And again it is to be remembered that these courts deal far more with the masses of the people than other courts. I do not think it could be good for us, for the sake of saving a little bit of money, to inaugurate this system without trying to attract ordinary individuals by the ordinary invitation of money.

The Minister should remember that the cash paid into the metropolitan courts in fines and the fees are somewhere over 75 per cent. of the salaries of the justices and assistant justices, and pay a particular portion of the salaries of those to whom we are referring here. These receipts are very big, and there should be some better attitude taken up towards this problem.

Mr. Boland

In this matter we are not doing something that was not done before. The new system was only brought into operation with the establishment of the Free State.

Mr. McGilligan

The tendency was bad from 1924, I agree.

Mr. Boland

In the old days I am sure there were good types of officials. I do not know whether they were satisfied or wanted to get away from their surroundings. They were departmental, and unless they have the departmental system they could not be kept there. The whole question of salaries is not settled yet, but I do not think it will differ very much from the ordinary Civil Service. I think the difference between district justices and other justices was settled definitely by the Act of 1924. I quite agree that the district justices are doing good work. We are not responsible for the difference in their status no more than the previous Government. The system is merely a continuation. I am not prepared, acting as I am merely as Deputy for the Minister for Justice, to say that any new departure will be made

Vote put and agreed to.