Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 17 Feb 1944

Vol. 92 No. 10

Committee on Finance. - Vote 25—Law Charges.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim breise ná raghaidh thar £2,000 chun íoctha an mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh Márta, 1944, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig an Ard-Aighne, etc., agus chun Costaisí Coir-Phróiseacht agus Dlí-Mhuireacha eile, ar a n-áirmhítear Deontas i gCabhair do Chostaisí áirithe is iníoctha do réir Reachta as Rátaí Aitiúla.

That a Supplementary Sum not exceeding £2,000 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1944, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Attorney-General, etc., and for the Expenses of Criminal Prosecutions and other Law Charges, including a Grant in Relief of certain Expenses payable by Statute out of Local Rates.

Mr. Smith

This again is a sum that it is difficult to estimate, inasmuch as it is influenced entirely by the number of criminal prosecutions. As it so happened, the amount provided this year was as much as the amount provided in the two previous years and up to this it was found to be sufficient, but, as a result of two rather long cases in the courts, and a number of prosecutions which were made at the instance of the Department of Supplies, the amount estimated was found not to be sufficient and we are, therefore, seeking this additional sum.

Mr. Connolly

Will the Parliamentary Secretary indicate over how many counsel this group of fees is spread? What is the number? Is there a confined panel?

Mr. Smith

I could not give the Deputy any information on that head, for the simple reason that I do not employ the counsel. The counsel are employed, I understand, by the Attorney-General.

Mr. Norton

But you have to get the money to pay them.

Mr. Smith

That happens in a lot of cases.

Mr. M. O'Sullivan

Is there a special panel?

Mr. Smith

I really could not give the Deputy any information on that point.

Mr. Norton

This money is for the payment of fees to counsel. How are counsel selected? I take it they are selected by the Attorney-General, and I assume he does his duty in the most correct possible way. Is the choice of counsel left to the Attorney-General? One does not want to be suspicious, but I often wonder how certain people come to be selected as counsel. I see gentlemen appearing in court from time to time representing the Attorney-General, and I recollect that they also appeared on political platforms on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party. I want to know whether the Attorney-General has any particular system of selection, whether counsel are suggested to him or whether some people come along and say: "Mr. Attorney-General, this gentleman would be a very excellent counsel and you ought to give him a trial." It seems to me that a lot of the people who are engaged by the Attorney-General are people who made themselves conspicuous by their loyalty to the Fianna Fáil Party on platforms throughout the country. I think the Parliamentary Secretary has had the benefit of their services.

Mr. Smith

I never needed them.

Mr. Norton

Probably you are better off.

Mr. Smith

I am so well up myself, I never required their services.

Mr. Norton

I should like to know if this is a kind of spoils system. Can the Attorney-General say: "All right, gather up the legal boys in the Party and take them all in and we will brief them?" I know that the last Government did that, and I know that the Fianna Fáil Government are doing it, even to a greater degree of perfection than their predecessors. But does the Government accept that as a kind of spoils scheme—that all the legal camp-followers can be engaged by the Attorney-General in various cases and this is a closed borough so far as the others are concerned? I want to get the view of the Government on this matter. I know it was a spoils system with the last Government, and it is with this Government also. It is entirely wrong, whether it was the practice in the last administration and is the practice under the present administration. Will the Parliamentary Secretary tell us how these legal people are engaged?

Mr. Smith

I am really surprised at Deputy Norton, the Leader of the Labour Party, who has in my time here made so much use of the Order Paper for the purpose of eliciting information. I happen to be the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and it is my business to provide the ammunition on which the law works. Naturally, the Minister for Finance and his Parliamentary Secretary are very anxious to ensure that the law will be kept in order, and we are providing the money required. But there is in this House a Minister for Justice and I suppose he would be the person who, in the normal course, should be called upon to answer questions on subjects such as those to which Deputy Norton has been referring.

Mr. Norton

Is the Parliamentary Secretary suggesting that the Minister for Justice is responsible for the Attorney-General's actions?

Mr. Smith

I am not making that suggestion; I am suggesting that if Deputy Norton wants to get information on that subject, he should put down a question on the Order Paper, in company with many other questions that appear there, and he should ask the Minister for Justice to reply on behalf of the Attorney-General, who is not here. I am sorry, but I am not in a position to give the information the Deputy is seeking.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

The Parliamentary Secretary has just stated that the Minister for Justice is the person to whom queries with regard to Law Charges should be put. I respectfully ask—and I ask for the ruling of the Chair—if a question like that which Deputy Norton raised can be raised on any other Vote except upon Law Charges, because the Attorney-General is perfectly independent of the Minister for Justice. The Minister for Justice has got nothing to do with any prosecutions, so that Law Charges is the only Vote upon which such a question as Deputy Norton raised could be answered. If what Deputy Norton says is correct, then when there is an extra Vote for fees for counsel, his query is, I submit, correctly brought up on this Vote. At the same time, I think it is fair for me, as I am a member of the Bar, to say that the present Attorney-General is not entirely influenced by the political views of the persons he appoints to carry on prosecutions, or who otherwise appear for the Government. In that respect the present Attorney-General is an immense improvement on his immediate predecessors.

An Ceann Comhairle

In reply to a question asked by the Deputy, it is in order to raise the matter on this Vote. Whether the Minister is responsible or not is another matter.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

It can only be raised on this Vote.

Sir John Esmonde

I should like to bear out what Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney has said about the present Attorney-General. I should also like to condemn as forcibly as I can, whether on the part of the previous Government or of this Government, the practice of counsel being employed only because they are followers of whatever political Party is in office. I think that is a very bad system to allow to grow up in this country. When the State is being served, and pays for certain counsel to be employed because they are certified to belong to a particular Party, that is altogether wrong. It is one of the features that was introduced into our Executive, having been taken over from England. It is a very bad system. I leave it to the public to judge. The Parliamentary Secretary has no personal knowledge on this question, but we know that counsel are employed largely on a political basis when appearing for the State. If this is an opportunity to condemn that practice, I wish to register my opinion about it here and now. I can speak openly about it, having retired from active practice at the Bar. I think it is doing incalculable harm to the State when pleas are put forward on behalf of the State by people who have affiliations with one political Party. This country should not be in the position of having the population looking up to the Government as representing one Party only. The State represents all the people, and the sooner we get away from the idea of Party government in its narrowest sense the better it will be for us. I do not blame the present Government for the existence of this system, because it was introduced here, and was taken over from another country. It is time that it should come to an end, and this is a suitable opportunity to condemn it.

Mr. Corry

I would be more interested in the amount of the fees. I understand that the fees of counsel are now beyond all reason. As to Deputy Esmonde's remarks, I wonder could he tell us where we would find a non-political barrister, or somebody who is not attached to one Party or another. I am afraid the Deputy would have a job to do that.

Mr. Connolly

When I raised this point I did not do so from the aspect that was adverted to by Deputy Norton. We all agree that we would not like to allow the system to be a spoils system. I agree with Deputy Corry that it would be impossible to find many competent barristers who are not politically minded. There is bound to be a slight preference in these matters, other things being equal, for the employment of barristers with the same political tendencies as those who employ them. I think that system would obtain to a slight extent, even if we had a Labour Attorney-General. There is no doubt about that. It may be exaggerated under the present Government, or under past Governments. I was not thinking of that, but of another aspect that obtained, and that is, that it is alleged in certain quarters that the amount of fees disbursed through the Attorney-General under sub-head D is confined to a certain number. I have been told—I cannot vouch for it personally—that in many cases barristers were employed on several cases simultaneously, minor cases as well as cases of larger import, and that they could not attend to the minor cases. If that is so, it would be an injustice to the junior barristers, to rising men, who had not yet made their names or attracted the attention of the Attorney-General. It was for that reason I asked the Parliamentary Secretary to indicate the extent of the field over which these fees are distributed. That would give an indication of how many counsel had been employed through the office of the Attorney-General. If it could be shown that there was a fairly general employment of counsel, that would be satisfactory, but if it showed that the major portion of the money went to two or three eminent counsel to the exclusion of junior barristers, I think that would be unsatisfactory, and should be looked into and checked. There are many cases which would not require any great knowledge of law, or any great eminence in the profession, that could be dealt with by young men, and in these cases it might be quite correct on the part of the Attorney-General to give a chance to the younger barristers, so that we would not have so many briefless barristers.

Mr. Smith

As I pointed out, this money is distributed over a fairly wide field. I am sorry that I could not anticipate being asked questions of the type that have been addressed to me. I suppose that was because of the humour in which the House finds itself. From the information I have been able to obtain the sum would be spread over about 30 junior and senior barristers.

Mr. Norton

I have not got an answer to my question: What is the method of selecting counsel? It seems to me to be a spoils system out and out. In other words, if a barrister helps to get the Government into office it is a case of "you scratch my back and I will scratch yours." If there are barristers of potential choice in the Party the Party will look after him. Is that the position? It seems to be. I met barristers in my constituency from time to time who campaigned against me with glorious results as far as they were concerned. Afterwards I saw that they got the best placed jobs, and even judicial jobs. There is no doubt that that was done in return for services rendered to the Party. That is a rotten and a vicious system. I am not saying anything against the present Attorney-General. I think he is a gentleman of inestimable qualities. I am talking only about the system.

I think it is wrong that the Attorney-General of a political Party, no matter what the political Party is, should employ only the legal camp followers of that Party. I think it is wrong in the case of this Government and that it was wrong in the case of the previous Government. I want to try to get some purity imported into this method of selecting counsel. I think every legal man should have a fair opportunity of representing the State in these prosecutions no matter what his political opinions are. I am not, as a rule, very much interested in legal folk; I think they are very well able to look after themselves. Deputy Corry has one view, that they look after themselves too well.

Having underlined what Deputy Corry has said, I pass on to suggest that some scheme should be evolved by which, if the State has to be represented in the courts by counsel, that counsel should not come into court with a particular political label round his neck. I suggest that counsel holding various political points of view, and even people who have no political points of view in the active political sense, should be selected in turn. The present system is nakedly a spoils system. If you are a barrister who has assisted the Government Party, you are almost sure to be retained as State counsel at some time or other; you have a chance of being appointed district justice, or you even may be lucky enough to get a Circuit Court judgeship if there is one going. I remember one gentleman who campaigned against me in the last election, and the next I heard of him was that he had been appointed a Circuit Court judge.

An Ceann Comhairle

The appointment of judges does not arise on this Vote.

Mr. Norton

I am not interested in these legal gentlemen at all, but in view of the very astute Minister who is responsible for Law Charges, I suggest that the matter should be examined with a view to bringing to an end the spoils system associated with the method of selection of people to represent the State in these prosecutions. I think counsel should be selected not because they are known to hold Fianna Fáil views or for that matter Fine Gael views, not on the basis of services given to a particular Party, but because of their general competency. I do not think the Parliamentary Secretary will pretend that that system obtains to-day. I think it is a mistake that it does not. I do not think that the Parliamentary Secretary will give a comprehensive reply on this matter, because he will not answer any questions except those which he knew were likely to be asked. This is a matter, however, which should be considered by the Government, and the Government will enhance its reputation by getting away from the scandalous system under which counsel are at present appointed.

Mr. Corry

I am afraid that Deputy Norton did not hear what his colleague Deputy Connolly said, that when the Labour Party came into power they would probably follow the same practice. I do not know what sort of a speech Deputy Norton makes when he goes down to his constituency in Kildare, but I do know that the people there are very sensible and I doubt if they would be very much impressed by anything they heard from one of these gentlemen of the Bar. In fact, I think that one of the best ways of ensuring the success of an opposing candidate is to bring one of these gentlemen on your platform. I certainly would not like to see them on my platform. How is the Attorney-General to pick the barristers who are to represent the State? Is he to go round amongst them and say: "You went on Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney's platform; therefore, I will appoint you to represent the State," or is he to go to somebody who appeared on a Labour platform and say: "I will appoint you to represent the State, and then they will not be able to say anything about my method of selection?" Is he to go along to some pal of Deputy Norton and say, "Very well, you will get the next job: I shall be very careful that none of my own people will get any chance"? Is that what Deputy Norton wants? How does he think this panel should be picked?

Mr. Norton

How is it picked at present?

Mr. Corry

Every barrister who is making any stir in the world at all is hitched on to some of the political Parties, every one of them from the top to the bottom. They are hitched to some of the political Parties for the purpose of getting somewhere sometime.

Mr. O'Donnell

Or they marry the daughters of successful solicitors.

Mr. Corry

How is Deputy Norton to get them out of politics? Deputy Norton has apparently a great opinion of barristers, but I wish he would take more of them on his platform and then he would disappear from public life very quickly. We would not see any more of him here.

Mr. Moran

I intervene in this discussion merely to correct Deputy Norton because he appears to be under some misapprehension in regard to this matter. The present Attorney-General, as far as I am aware, has picked men, or at all events a number of them, mainly for their opposition to the Government rather than for their ability. I will say that quite a number of the barristers doing State work at the moment are good men and eminent men, but speaking of the men I know on the Western Circuit, who are doing State work at the present time, I can say they are, practically without exception, men who are bitterly opposed to Fianna Fáil and bitterly opposed to the present Government, so that politics, at all events, has nothing to do with these selections.

Mr. Connolly

Is Deputy Moran quite serious in the revelation he has made that the Government are employing barristers more because of the fact that they were opposed to the Government than because of their competence in law?

Mr. Moran

I am stating the facts as they exist on the Western Circuit.

Mr. Connolly

Does Deputy Moran not understand that that is a very grave charge to make against the Attorney-General, that he should pick men because of their political opinions and because of their opposition to the Government, rather than because of their competence in law?

Mr. Moran

I have not reflected on the ability of these men on the Western Circuit. I have stated that they publicly opposed the Fianna Fáil Party and the Fianna Fáil policy, and that they are to-day doing State work. I defy contradiction on that from any member of the House. When the case is made here that barristers working for the State are solely supporters of the Government, I think that statement should be made.

Vote put and agreed to.