Committee on Finance. - Vote 20—Office of the Minister for Justice (Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (19th Dáil) – Tuesday, 25 Nov 1969

Committee on Finance. - Vote 20—Office of the Minister for Justice (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1970, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Justice, and of certain other services administered by that Office, including a grant-in-aid; and of the Public Record Office, and of the Keeper of State Papers and for the purchase of Historical Documents, etc.—

(Minister for Justice).

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): When I reported progress on Friday afternoon I had dealt fairly fully with the Estimate in spite of some difficulties in the early stages of my remarks. I do not intend to take up the time of the House at great length today beyond tidying up some points I had already made and dealing with some of the points that I had not reached. No doubt there will be more heard of the “Seven Days” money-lending episode before the debate concludes, and I do not now propose to say very much more about it. On Friday I pointed out that the most serious aspect of the Minister's attitude towards that programme was that it might and probably would act as a deterrent to other well-intentioned bodies of people who wished to expose scandals or bring lawbreakers to justice.

I intended to make another point but, as I say, I was operating under some difficulties at that time in so far as there were interruptions and helpful and unhelpful points of order. However, it is of importance to go on record here as saying that I regard the Minister's attitude to this programme as very dangerous, because he was dealing with a semi-State body, RTE. We in this country are developing the idea of semi-State bodies, and if we are to take the Minister for Lands as expressing Government opinion, it is likely that even some Departments of State or sections of them will be converted into semi-State bodies. I refer to the Department of Lands which embraces the Forestry Division.

Mr. Moran

For the record, he said he was not expressing the Government's opinion but his own opinion.

Mr. L'Estrange

The Minister did not agree with him.

Mr. Moran

That is not the point.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I accept the Minister's correction. That is quite right, but the idea is in the air and the trend apparently in public thought and Government thought or individual ministerial thought is towards the establishment of semi-State bodies. Therefore, it is very important that these semi-State bodies and the people who are trying to operate them should not be given the impression that the Government and individual members of the Government regard these semi-State bodies as their own property and that they are entitled to bully them and chastise them publicly when, in their opinion, the occasion arises. That is a dangerous step because the Minister in charge of a particular semi-State body is not answerable to the House for the day-to-day running of that body.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister is not responsible for the semi-State body mentioned. I cannot see how the Deputy can go on to discuss it.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I am talking about the principle of it, arising out of the Minister's attitude. I do not intend to labour it. I say I want to go on record as protesting against the establishment of an attitude here that, while Ministers are not responsible to the House for the day-to-day running of a semi-State body, they can stand up in the House and bully these bodies into subjection. I hope I have made that clear. That is the second serious objection I take to the Minister's attitude on this point.

The only other controversial matter I dealt with was the Cork case and the Minister pointed out, correctly, that it is not directly his responsibility. Nevertheless he promised he would make inquiries and deal with it in his reply. In the atmosphere of interruption which was prevailing in the House at the time, I omitted to say that crime seems to be on the increase in Cork. Since these 209 charges were withdrawn in May, 1969, critical comparisons have been made by the people of Cork with convictions and sentences in other cases and that, in my opinion, is a serious situation. We are administering justice now in a delicate and upset situation and it is of the highest importance that there should be no grounds for any person to say that there is one law for one set and another law for another set. If we ever get to that state of affairs we will find ourselves on the road to a revolution in this country, and I do not think I am using extravagant language when I say that.

The case I spoke about occurred on 24th May, 1969. In the Cork Examiner of 28th June, 1969, Judge Neylon, the circuit court judge, is reported as stating, in reference to housebreaking charges against two youths, who I think had pleaded guilty, that:

... when a threat arose to the community the law must be prepared to meet it with all the resources at its disposal for that was the duty of the law, to protect the public.

There has been given here what I can only describe as a startling increase in this kind of crime in Cork. I have already indicated the line I will take in dealing with this type of crime. I consider this to be a challenge to the good of the community and the good of the community must always be a major consideration with me when I am dealing with crime of this kind.

When young criminals of 16 to 25 years set their faces against the law, the law which is there to protect the owners of property from the ravages of these criminals, when these young criminals set themselves out to defy the law, the law will defeat them and every young criminal will go to jail for as long as the law allows.

In this case, unfortunately, the law only allows the District Justice to give 12 months. This fellow broke into two premises one night and committed damage estimated at £285. Twelve months is far too short for that kind of crime. It is a great pity that in the Criminal Justice Act the jurisdiction of the District Justice is not extended to give a longer period. I hope it will be. In the circumstances I cannot do any more about it, had he come before me on indictment he would have got far more. I will treat any other young criminal who comes before me on this type of crime in the same fashion. I dismiss the appeal.

(Cavan): We can leave it at that and I shall raise the matter on the Taoiseach's Estimate, as I understand that he is the person directly responsible for the money voted for the Attorney-General's Office.

The Minister dealt at length in the course of his speech with the question of bail. I omitted to deal with this on Friday, but I gather the Minister has a fairly strong view about bail. He proposes to alter the law in so far as the Constitution will permit, and have matters which are not now relevant on an application for bail taken into consideration on such application later on. I would feel I was lacking in my duty if I did not put on record in this House that the Minister should not accept that his views express the general thinking in this House. None of us is coming in here to defend the criminal, that is not part of our duty. We do want to defend, and defend strenuously, the principle which has prevailed here down through the years that a man is innocent until he is convicted.

I am aware of a recent decision of the Supreme Court which decided that the only matter proper for consideration on an application for bail was whether the accused was likely to abscond on the day of justice. If I understand the Minister correctly, he proposes to put the previous record of the accused person at issue on such an application. He proposes to make it relevant for the court to consider the opinion of responsible police officers as to whether the person seeking bail is likely to commit further crimes if he is granted bail.

What is paramount here is that an innocent person should not be locked up in Mountjoy jail or any other jail for three months or four months or, indeed for three days, and subsequently acquitted. If we accept the Minister's attitude, it could very well be that an accused person would be remanded in custody in July and would be compelled to remain in custody until, perhaps, October or longer without trial and that eventually the trial of that person, conducted according to our code of justice, would show that he was innocent or, at least, that the crime had not been brought home to him and that he was entitled to his liberty.

When I say, "according to our code of justice and to our code of criminal procedure" I make no apology for that code of criminal procedure. It is a code that has been weighed in favour of the principle I have mentioned, that is, that an accused person must always be deemed to be innocent until he is proved guilty. On the Minister's own brief, without any further or deeper research, let us consider the criminal code for trial of accused persons which we have. According to the Minister, there has been achieved under that code a detection and conviction rate of 61 per cent and that compares favourably with other countries studied by the Minister and his advisers. I would venture to suggest to the Minister that in some of these other countries which he has studied and examined there is a much stricter system of investigation and trial of accused persons. I venture to suggest that some accused persons are locked up and compulsorily questioned. That does not happen here. Yet, we are getting good results and I do not think that we should depart from the system which has worked so well.

The Minister says:

The present state of the law which arises from a Supreme Court decision in a Constitutional case is that every accused person must be granted bail unless there is substantial evidence that he would be likely to abscond or evade justice.

I think I am correct in saying that that decision probably disregarded for the first time another consideration, that is, the seriousness of the offence involved. It was always accepted that a person on a murder charge when that murder charge carried the death penalty would not be granted bail. That was accepted for obvious reasons. I would be against any substantial departure from the present system but, in preparing the arguments which the Minister has put before the House, has he considered whether the extent of the evidence against the person seeking bail should be taken into consideration, whether the court should be informed by the Attorney-General that the evidence is strong or appears to be conclusive? We have to move very slowly and very carefully in any proposal to water down the right of an accused person to bail.

I dealt on Friday last at some length with the matter of Garda training. I suggested that the breathing space which our geographical situation gives us here in relation to a type of offence which starts elsewhere should be availed of and that the gardaí should be trained to deal with any new type of offence, whether it be drug peddling, rioting, illegal protest marches, or rioting arising out of protest marches. The Minister referred in his speech to a revised system of training for gardaí. I should like the Minister to tell us more about that new form of training because, unless I am mistaken, there is the same six months period of training for gardaí as there was 50 years ago and I do not think it is sufficient in order to deal with the complex types of crime that we have now. It would be a pity if youthful offenders breaking the law and the gardaí should cross swords and misunderstand each other simply and solely because the gardaí had not been adequately trained to deal with that sort of thing. I would suggest, therefore, that the Minister should certainly review the type of training provided for the Garda and that gardaí who are on duty in cities or large built-up areas should have different or a more extensive course of training than is given to gardaí operating in rural areas because they are likely to meet a different type and a greater volume of crime.

The Minister dealt with law reform. He very fairly said that the programme of law reform is not proceeding as quickly as he would like because, amongst other things, of lack of technical staff. It is a fact that there is a great deal of law reform in that programme which has not come before the Oireachtas in the form of a Bill. For example, there is the law of contracts which, it was suggested, should be revised. The law of contracts has been revised in Great Britain recently, with considerable benefit to the consumer. There is one point that I should like to put to the Minister for his consideration when he is thinking about revising this part of our law. At the present time there are certain large firms in this country who manufacture certain articles which they sell through an exclusive agent, that agent not being at liberty to sell any type of goods other than the goods manufactured by the firms I have in mind. That means, for all practical purposes, that it is the manufacturer who is selling directly to the consumer through this exclusive agent, as I call him for want of a better term. Yet, if the consumer wants to claim damages or to complain, he cannot get at the manufacturer. He must bring his action against the person with whom he made the contract—in other words, with the distributor—notwithstanding the fact that, for all practical purposes, the complaint should be brought against the people who really sold him the goods, namely, the manufacturers. That is a point well worthy of consideration because, as a result of big corporation methods, in this system the small man can very often get hurt.

The jury system is crying out for reform. I am in favour of juries in criminal trials; in fact I see no alternative to them. So long as we have the jury system jurors should not be at a financial loss as a result of serving on juries. The Minister has this under consideration; something must be done about it, and done quickly. Jurors who have to travel long distances to serve on juries in circuit courts do not get any expenses at all in criminal cases. They get, I think, 5s in civil cases. Some of the jury rooms, never seen by the general public, are far from comfortable. Something should be done about them.

Mr. Moran

Does the Deputy believe in juries at all in civil cases or are they anachronisms?

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): In principle, the jury system in civil cases is working well. Perhaps the method of presenting evidence and the duration of the cases could be cut down, but I would not abandon trial by jury in civil cases in favour of a single judge. The Minister knows perfectly well from his own experience as a lawyer that certain judges are regarded as plaintiff's judges and others as defendant's judges. Trial by a single judge in those circumstances could work a grave injustice. The jury system in civil actions protects litigants from that kind of thing. Jury actions in civil cases take too long. That does not mean the whole system is bad or that we could not, perhaps, have some sort of attempt at agreeing evidence.

Mr. O'Higgins

It would take ten times as long before a judge.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The issues could be cut down to a minimum. Law reform should not be a political issue. I am sure the Minister will concede that. In any major change the Minister should have the widest possible advice and he should not bring in here a Bill to which he is already committed in principle. He should be advised by an all-party committee, or something of that kind. It was proposed in the Succession Act to do away with the second witness to a will. I thought that a very dangerous departure. While we have not got wholesale forgery, it is not unheard of, and I thought the abolition of the second witness a retrograde step. The Minister for Justice at the time accepted my argument and the two witnesses stand.

The Minister may have in his Department the best technical brains in the country or, indeed, in Europe. It is a good thing, however, that the political head of the Department is a lawyer, a man with experience. But even a practical, practising lawyer could have a bee in his bonnet. He could be wrong. In dealing with law reform we are dealing with the rights of individuals and we should walk very warily. As I say, I would be slow to depart from the jury system even in civil cases. I would not think of departing from it in criminal cases without much research and great consideration.

The Minister intends to codify landlord and tenant legislation. I am in favour of that. There is nothing so exasperating as having several Acts dealing with one matter, but we must be travelling pretty slowly because I see that one of the things it is proposed to deal with is the right of sporting clubs to new tenancies. That has been a matter of concern for the past 20 or 25 years. While the business man is entitled to renewal, the sporting club is not. That caused some trouble a long time ago. I am surprised it has not been dealt with before this.

Another matter requiring urgent attention is the enactment of rules of court. The Minister told us that draft rules are now being prepared under the Succession Act of 1965. Rules have not, apparently, come into operation to provide proper machinery for the Planning and Development Act, 1963, or the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1967. When the Minister for Local Government introduces a Road Traffic Act, which is implemented largely through the medium of rules and regulations, he must have his rules and regulations ready before he brings the Act into operation. The Incorporated Law Society feel very strongly that Acts of Parliament which may necessitate court actions to establish the rights of the individual should not be brought into operation until the rules are brought into operation. That is elementary. It is something on which the Minister should take a firm stand.

I agree with the Minister's attitude in the case of prisons, that is, that we should seek reform. We should try to reform the criminal. It is my belief that most of the people who have broken the law and have gone to prison can be reformed. I approve of the experiment in Shanganagh of a semi-open institution and of pre-discharge leave for well-behaved prisoners. That is a good idea because it will reform these people and give them a better chance of rehabilitating themselves when they are released.

A critical analysis of this country would probably disclose that we are somewhat uncharitable towards the criminal, the man who has fallen foul of the law and has gone to prison. When these people leave prison they find it difficult to get employment and to be accepted as citizens although they have served a term for the offence committed. That should not be so in this more enlightened age.

Mr. P.J. Burke

The Deputy is quoting St. Paul.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I probably do not know my theology as well as Deputy Burke.

Mr. Moran

For the record: "Blessed Patrick Burke".

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): However, I would have thought that most people agreed with what I am saying. The alternative seems to be that if people cannot be rehabilitated here they go across the water where they go entirely to the bad. The Minister's speech expressed agreement with what I am saying, as shown by the fact that he is providing a psychiatrist for the prisons.

I have already dealt with the Land Registry but in conclusion I shall just mention another few words about it. The Minister admits the importance of the Land Registry. He concedes that there is great delay because of staffing problems and, probably, because of office accommodation. Perhaps it was a mistake to introduce compulsory registration in the three counties, Louth, Meath and, I think, Carlow until we were in a position to deal with it because it would appear to me that that would increase the delays. As I have already said, there is a sort of vicious circle in the Land Registry because of the increased number of searches.

The last item which the Minister dealt with was the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests. In so far as we have occasion to deal with this body we find it very satisfactory. A typical example of a well worthwhile item of reform in the Charities Act some years ago was the right given to the Commissioners for Charitable Donations and Bequests to appoint new trustees.

As we know, much charitable property was held in the names of persons who had died maybe 50 years ago and, apart from the expense of having to raise representation to these people, there were other expenses involved. In one case I have in mind it would have been necessary to try and trace the next-of-kin all over the world and, failing that, it would have been necessary to bring in a special probate motion before a probate judge. Under the reform that was put into the last Act, the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests have simply to give certain notice and then appoint trustees.

That is all I wish to say on this Estimate. It is the first occasion on which I have been charged with the duty of considering the Minister's Estimate and I hope that the Minister will accept that most, if not all, of my suggestions were well-intentioned and were made with a view to improving the administration of justice and respect for the administration of justice.

Mr. Pattison

Were it not for the financial provisions of this very important Estimate designed to provide improvements in the pay and conditions of the various branches of the staff under the Department of Justice, my party would have moved a motion to refer back this Estimate and we would have voted against the passing of the Estimate at the end of the debate.

Our reason for doing this would have been because of the Minister's attitude to a question put down by Deputy Corish last week. The Department of Justice is a very important one and the Minister holds a very important position. Because of that, it is essential that all Members of the House examine in detail not only the workings of the Department but the attitude of the Minister not alone to parliamentary questions generally but to matters raised on questions. We have seen that the Minister has availed of the opportunity afforded him by Deputy Corish's question to attack the integrity of certain journalists attached to Radio Telefís Éireann. Some aspects of Deputy Corish's question were left unanswered in the Minister's mad rush to attack these people.

Mr. Moran

I did not attack them: I stated the facts.

Did anybody ever buy the Minister a drink in a pub?

Mr. Pattison

The Minister tried to rule out a discussion of the matter on this Estimate but he will hear more of it from other speakers who will follow me. We are all looking forward to a full explanation from the Minister in his reply. We regret he did not see fit to refrain from saying all he said here in reply to the question last week, until he had further evidence. He said himself he was still proceeding with investigations. Therefore, it was highly irresponsible of him to attack these journalists who, whether or not we agree with them, are doing a public service. By making any illegal activity public, by bringing it out in the open, they are protecting the people from it. Furthermore, they are creating public opinion on the evils of this type of activity and, indeed, other types of activities.

The readiness of certain backbenchers to join in the attack on these journalists was, to say the least of it, a revelation. When one sees people who, it would seem, set themselves up as good examples to the community, as do-gooders, and so on, making attacks of the kind indulged in here last week and indulging in name-calling, it makes one think. That was the spectacle we witnessed in this House at Question Time last Wednesday. It would be unfortunate if other aspects of this Estimate were overlooked and the debate was solely on this aspect of the Minister's activity. There are other important things in the Estimate which should get full and detailed consideration. Members will be concerned about the shortage of gardaí and rural Deputies particularly will be concerned about the proposal the Minister has in mind to solve this shortage of manpower in large urban areas.

According to his statement the Minister proposes, among other things, to close more rural stations. I do not want to compare the situation here with the situation in the six north-eastern counties but recommendations made there in recent times indicate that it was a mistake to close down smaller stations and to concentrate men in one big station, that they lost the personal contact which they had with the people. We can learn from this. If the crime rate is low, as it is, in rural areas it is because of the fact that the garda in a rural area is part of the community; he is looked on as a leader; he takes an active part in Macra na Tuaithe, the local GAA or some other parochial activity. Because of that he has a very intimate knowledge of the area and the people in it and is better able to do his duty. I know of one case—I suppose there are many—where the local Garda sergeant in a rural station spends most of his free time in the local youth club giving physical education to the youths of the area. I know one can argue that the gardaí are not paid to do this type of work but a garda like that among young people is a very good influence. If we are to proceed further with a policy of taking gardaí from rural areas and closing down stations we will see, as the years go by, the mistake that was made.

The manpower of the Garda and the duties of the force should be kept under constant review. The duties of the Garda are increasing. There was an incident a few months ago which probably was not funny at the time but is amusing to look back on. Demonstrators here in Dublin marched to Collins Barracks to demand arms and the Army sent for the Garda to protect them. I know this procedure probably had to be gone through but when Garda manpower is stretched to the limit there should be some arrangement made to avoid what one might describe as a comical situation—a force of gardaí having to come down to keep demonstrators out of military barracks adequately protected and adequately provided with manpower to do that.

It is most alarming to hear of the increase in crime particularly in armed robbery. Practically no week goes by now without an armed robbery or an attempted armed robbery of one of our banks. I do not know what the Minister and his Department are doing about this very serious problem. Week by week crime is increasing and the crimes committed are becoming more serious. I know that in some of these so-called armed robberies the arms carried are not dangerous to life but nevertheless people cannot take a chance. The time has come when stronger action must be taken to protect people and to provide the Garda with the necessary equipment to prevent this type of crime and to detect this type of criminal.

It is alarming to read in the Minister's statement that the number of crimes committed is increasing and that the percentage of that total committed by young people is also increasing. I shall not venture to say where the root of this problem rests but it is certainly one that needs the urgent and immediate attention of the authorities because over the past number of years this trend has been evident and it has been rising particularly in the last three years.

Car stealing is very prevalent in Dublin city and also the taking of the contents of cars. I should like the Minister to give some figures concerning that because it is causing grave concern. He has told us the number of bicycles taken. In relation to car stealing there is the very serious problem of insurance. If an accident takes place the unfortunate, innocent victim could be seriously hurt or killed and his dependants left penniless. The loss of a car is in itself a serious matter for the loser but the loss of life or serious injury of an innocent person is more important.

In considering the question of Garda manpower and their increasing duties it appears to me that too much time is spent investigating shoplifting in supermarkets. and the time consumed in court cases afterwards should be examined. If certain large monopolies and traders want to trade in this manner, leaving their goods very much out in the open in a tempting and provocative manner, too much sympathy should not be shown to them. I am not for a minute condoning the activities of shoplifters but I feel a good deal of the time of our gardaí is taken up taking statements from people caught at this type of activity and also in giving evidence in court. If large supermarket chains want to operate in this manner they must be prepared to take the risk and they should not live in the hope that the gardaí will solve problems of the supermarkets' own creation.

Take the case of the motorist who leaves goods displayed in his locked car. He gets very little sympathy if the car is broken into and the goods taken. People will say that he left them there in front of everybody's eye. We should adopt somewhat the same attitude to those large supermarkets who carry on this type of trading without adequate staff. They should do one of two things. If they have not adequate staff to protect their wares they should be prepared to put up with the consequences. I detest people who engage in shoplifting, but people are human and if you dangle goods in front of their eyes in a fashion where it would be very easy to take goods from the display these people should not be blamed that much. More important still, I do not think the time of the gardaí or of the court should be taken up with investigations, statements or charges arising from those matters. I am speaking about petty shoplifting which goes on.

The last time I spoke on this Estimate I referred to the motorised equipment of gardaí. I still feel in rural areas that the use of the motor cycle is very limited. It is an important piece of equipment in Dublin and built-up areas because with traffic congestion it is important that machines which can get through traffic fairly easily should be used, but in rural areas there should be a concentration on larger vehicles, even mini-cars. Last week, when I was going home from this House late one night, I came across a very serious obstacle on an unlighted main road. Some individual with a queer sense of humour had placed a large plank across the road. It was not very easy for one man to lift. I reported the matter at the next Garda station. It was a very cold, wet night and the garda who took the complaint I made put on his coat, got up on his motor cycle and went about three miles to investigate the matter. If I knew before I went into the station that my complaint would have involved the garda getting up on his motor cycle that very wet night I would have had second thoughts. The motor cycle is dangerous in the frosty, icy and wet weather we usually experience here during the winter. More emphasis should be placed on the provision of small cars instead of motor cycles in rural areas.

I was amazed at the almost total lack of reference in the Minister's statement to road safety, traffic accidents and traffic congestion which are causing a great deal of trouble in this country today. The Minister made only a very slight reference to this very important matter on page 14 of his statement. He referred to a new system of reporting and recording road traffic accidents and then went on to say:

My colleague, the Minister for Local Government, will I am sure, give the House all relevant information on the subject.

This division of responsibility as regards road traffic, road accidents and road safety is the cause of the failure to get any overall solution to this problem. We have the Minister for Local Government involved in it in a big way. The Minister for Justice is involved in it, too, even though in his statement on this Estimate you would not think he had anything to do with road safety, traffic jams or traffic accidents. We have a Minister for Transport and Power who has little to do with transport as we know it. It is time that one Minister—I feel it should be the Minister for Justice—accepted complete responsibility for the organisation of traffic in this country. For far too long we have divided this problem among various Ministers with the result that the problem has continued and has got worse, and today we find in Dublin city and in other cities and towns throughout the country that traffic chaos is becoming more the common thing rather than a special occurrence.

It would have helped us in debating this Estimate if the Minister had given figures of road casualties and the effectiveness of the 60 mph speed limit because these are important matters for discussion on the Estimate for the Department of Justice. The question should be asked, should there be set up a special division of the Garda to patrol the main roads of this country for the purpose of preventing and detecting traffic offences?

The duties of the gardaí are so diverse and demanding that it is very difficult for them to enforce all the laws they are obliged to enforce, and the present force could be employed wholetime solely on enforcement of traffic regulations. I should like to emphasise again that one Minister should be responsible for this serious problem of road traffic and all other relevant matters.

I was very disappointed to see that the Minister did not make reference to this alarming problem, though, unfortunately, fatal accidents on our roads are still increasing. On the well-known Naas-Dublin dual carriageway I am told fatal accidents are still occurring but they are not now getting the publicity they formerly received, and this also applies to other areas. This may or may not be a good thing and I shall not go into the merits of that, but the Minister should give the figures so that we might have a debate on this very urgent problem.

The previous speaker mentioned the conditions of service of the Garda Síochána and I would support him in his call to expedite the introduction of a new book of rules, as it were. It is very bad for the community and a serious reflection on the Government to have unrest in the Garda Síochána. The Government are the employers and they must accept the ultimate responsibility for the unrest in the force in the past few months. We hope that this situation will be resolved very quickly. This unrest is justified because the terms of employment of these people were drawn up under a code that was first adopted in 1926, and if anybody in private employment or in industry were working under conditions laid down even four or five years ago, not to mention 40 years ago, they would be "in dispute" as the saying is, or on strike a long time ago.

Mr. Barry Desmond

Hear, hear.

Mr. Pattison

I add my voice to that of the other speakers that we owe it to the Garda Síochána to hurry up the introduction of these new conditions as we owe it to the whole community so that they will have a contented force because it is only by contentment in work that one gets the best results.

Housing accommodation for the force leaves much to be desired. I know of young members of the Garda who because of lack of housing accommodation are forced to have their families divided up, and of others who are living 70 or 80 miles away from their wives and families, with no hope in the foreseeable future of getting accommodation. Their employment renders them liable to transfer and in some cases where gardaí have suitable houses they may be transferred—the transfer itself may be for their benefit— but with their new appointment they may have serious housing difficulties.

Very little progress has been made on this problem and something should be done because local authorities are unable at the moment even to half-fulfil the commitments they have to their own applicants, and, therefore, it is no answer for the Minister to say that members of the Garda should apply to them for housing accommodation. Here, again, I repeat that the man who is contented in his work is much better than the man who is not contented and I cannot see how a man can be contented and happy in his work if because of lack of housing accommodation his family is divided.

I would appeal to the Minister further to improve the pensions of gardaí who have retired and also the pensions of the widows of gardaí, who are not entitled to contributory widows' pensions. By reason of the small pension and gratuity they get they are also disqualified from receiving the non-contributory pension. In many cases I know, some of these widows would be far better off if their husbands had stamped cards so that they could get the contributory pension. This is a situation that should be further examined and be improved.

The Minister dealt with law reform and mentioned several proposals that he hoped to bring before the House in the future. There are some items that I hoped he would not have listed which he has listed and some which I hoped he would list and has not listed. I shall just mention the one I hoped he would list but which he has not listed—the Malicious Injuries Act. What has happened to the proposal to amend that Act? We had promises on previous Estimates that this was being dealt with as a matter of urgency and that proposals would come before the House on the matter before very long. That time has passed and we are still awaiting the proposals. I regard the repeal of this Act as the most urgent part of our law reform. It was introduced by an alien government to, if you like, put manners on the unfortunate people of this country at that time and it is still on our Statute Book. It appears from the Minister's statement that the Criminal Justice Bill has now taken precedence over the repeal of the Malicious Injuries Act in spite of promises made by the Minister's predecessor on more than one occasion.

On 24th November, 1966, almost exactly three years ago today the then Minister, Deputy B. Lenihan, in volume 225 of the Official Report at column 1555 said:

In April, 1965, a summary of the Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Malicious Injuries to the Person and Property was published. For years now there has been an agitation for a change in the law affecting the payment from the rates for malicious injuries to property. The whole subject is now under active review with the object of putting definite proposals to the Government for amending the law on malicious injuries.

I think the then Minister referred to it again in 1967. Yes, on 5th July, 1967, at column 1264 of volume 229, speaking on the Estimate, he said:

I hope to bring before the Oireachtas later this year proposals to amend the law governing the payment of compensation in respect of malicious injuries to property and persons. A summary of the report of an Inter-Departmental Committee which examined this question was published in 1965.

That was two-and-a-half years ago when he said he hoped to bring in the Bill later that year but, of course, other legislative proposals such as the Criminal Justice Bill and Bills to amend the Constitution took precedence. The Malicious Injuries Bill is now forgotten in the Minister's Estimate although it was twice mentioned in successive Estimates and is now apparently completely wiped off the law reform programme for the foreseeable future.

I appeal to the Minister to treat as a matter of urgency the removal of this Act from the Statute Book. It causes great worry not only to local authorities but also to private individuals. Some months ago in County Kilkenny there was a spate of hay burnings and if claims had been made in all cases it would have been a serious matter for the ratepayers of the county. It is sad to think that some damage can be done, even by people outside the State who can come in and do malicious damage in certain areas and the local ratepayers will be called on to foot the bill. The reasons for the introduction of this Act are gone, thank God, and no time should be lost in removing it from the Statute Book.

I am pleased to see that it is intended to bring in one Bill to cover the whole landlord and tenant relationship. In conjunction with that I ask that some booklet be issued so that the lay person, as distinct from the lawyer or solicitor, will be able to see his rights under these Acts. At the moment it is difficult for the solicitor or lawyer to interpret people's rights under these Acts, of which there are so many, and it is impossible for the ordinary tenant to establish his rights. I hope that in conjunction with the Bill the Minister will introduce a comprehensive booklet in ordinary man-in-the-street phraseology so as to help people in the problems they have under the Landlord and Tenant Acts.

That is the truth.

Mr. Desmond

He interpreted the Garda report.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Burke should be allowed to make his statement. Other Deputies will have an opportunity of contributing later.

Mr. Moran

Deputy Desmond does not consider the truth. He wants to keep interrupting.

Mr. Desmond

It is on record.

Mr. P.J. Burke

The men to whom I have referred are decent men. Some of them are living within my ecclesiastical area in County Dublin.

Mr. Browne

In the Deputy's diocese.

Mr. P.J. Burke

To deal with the point that was raised, I want to pay tribute to the credit unions especially those in the built-up areas which I represented for many years: Ballyfermot, Finglas and other areas where we had money-lending, and bad money-lending in those days. Going back 20 years, I remember that we had to try to save people from being evicted from their corporation homes. I had a small hand in helping to start the credit unions in some of those areas, and I am very proud of the work they are doing. They have almost squeezed out the money-lenders as I knew them 20 years ago. We are not perfect. No one is perfect. I am not perfect and I never will be. In our society it is inevitable that certain people will do these things. I have interpreted the Minister's reply and I will not go any further with it. I will not be drawn into any further arguments about it.

Since the Minister took over the office of Minister for Justice the incidence of one crime which was rampant in Dublin—that of people going around with knives and knuckledusters and chains—has been reduced. I want to compliment the Minister and the Garda for reducing the number of those crimes. It is a very bad crime. Everyone in our cities should be able to walk through them during the day or at night without being interfered with by those people. Anything the Minister can do to eliminate that crime should be done. This crime is committed outside dance halls in particular. A jealous boy or a vulgar boy comes along with a knife and injures someone else.

There was a very sad case in Santry. A boy was beaten up after a dance. He was a second year engineering student and he was beaten and cut with a knife so badly about six years ago that he is a mental wreck today. These people should be put off the street no matter who they are. I hope the Minister will continue to do that. I want to compliment him, the commissioner and the Garda who are doing this job. We all owe Sergeant Brannigan a deep debt of gratitude. He knows Dublin so well that these people are afraid to operate.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy will appreciate it is not in order to single out an individual for praise or blame.

Mr. P.J. Burke

I am referring to the sergeant in charge of the gardaí who have to deal with this unruly element, and I am sure the Minister will convey to the Garda commissioner our appreciation of his work.

A number of Garda stations are under strength. The plain clothes men always did a good job. Since I came into this House there have been the "animal gang" and other such criminal groups. There should be more gardaí in plain clothes. There was a time when parts of this city were, so to speak, crime-ridden and the garda on the beat and the plain clothes men dealt successfully with the situation. There are many robberies being committed. I had a deputation here from my constituency last week. One man told me he had seven robberies since last November, and there were several similar stories from others. I have compiled a report for the Minister on this. These people are not blaming the gardaí in the district. They believe there are not enough gardaí to do the work. While the Garda car gets to the scene of a crime quickly, the criminals know that if the Garda car is on patrol, it will not be back to the same place for at least five minutes. When gardaí were on the beat, the criminals did not know when to expect them. Furthermore, these gardaí were in a position to get information which led to crime detection. For these reasons I hope the Minister will increase the number of plain clothes gardaí and men on the beat.

The gardaí could make a good impression from the point of view of our tourist industry. In visiting a few countries from time to time I have been impressed by the courtesy of the police. Courtesy is very cheap, but some people find it hard to speak civilly to anyone. I realise that many of our gardaí could give lectures on courtesy and kindness, but I should like to see all our gardaí being instructed in that old-world courtesy.

The gardaí should adopt a more helpful attitude in regard to public houses in seaside resorts, especially in the tourist season. He could help the licensee by just walking in when it is time up instead of going in a few minutes later and taking people's names. We do not want the law to be disobeyed but more discretion could be used. The onus in this matter should be put more on the customer than on the publican. I know publicans who have found it very hard to get customers out, and have been fined as a result.

It is only natural that gardaí, in common with the rest of us, should seek to have their conditions improved. In County Dublin and the city of Dublin, a number of gardaí have bought their own houses under SDA loans and otherwise. This is a huge problem for all our people. As a member of the inter-Parliamentary conference I visited a country where the Government was housing its own employees but they were forgetting about the ordinary people. What we are trying to do here is to house all our people, irrespective of who they are. I admit that on many occasions gardaí have to move to a district where there are very bad houses but conditions are the same for all. I think the Minister has attended to these things reasonably well over the last five or six years.

In the debate last Friday and earlier today an attack was made on the Attorney-General over a decision in Cork. I should like to know how many Deputies have made representations in their own way for a friend in trouble. I have done so on many occasions and I would do it again tomorrow. I will not say to whom I make these representations, but if there is a friend in trouble and I can do him a good turn I will do it. This is the most human thing to do. The day we become so regimentated that we are above doing anything for anybody else will be a bad day.

Mr. O'Higgins

What about a person who is not a friend of Deputy Burke?

Mr. P.J. Burke

Mr. O'Higgins

In my estimation the Attorney-General is a man of outstanding rectitude.

Mr. P.J. Burke

I am very pleased Deputy O'Higgins said that because I was just going to say I could not speak too highly of the Attorney-General.

An Ceann Comhairle

The matter does not arise on this Vote.

Mr. O'Higgins

It comes under the Vote of the Taoiseach.

An Ceann Comhairle

It does not arise on the Vote of the Taoiseach, it arises on the Finance Vote.

Mr. P.J. Burke

I want to defend a very honourable public servant who is not in this House to defend himself.

(Interruptions.)

An Ceann Comhairle

Would Deputies allow Deputy Burke to continue making his speech?

Mr. P.J. Burke

I was very pleased to see the improvement in the Land Registry, and I hope it will continue. I would like to compliment the Department on the work it is doing. While I am in the mood for paying compliments I would like to say we are lucky to have excellent district justices and judges in this country to look after our affairs.

Road traffic does not come under the Minister for Justice, but in Dublin city we have a number of gardaí trying to regulate the traffic. The position has got so bad, especially during the peak periods, that I think it should be a matter for another Department.

Comments have been made about certain people charged with criminal offences getting bail. One Deputy said that an innocent person may be refused bail and none of us would want that. We do have to ask ourselves in the light of experience gained of people committing new offences while on bail, it has been proved that over 150 of them have committed more offences while they were on bail, what can be done to stop this. I do feel that anything the Minister can do to improve the situation should be done. I would be sorry, and so would all Deputies, if an innocent man was refused bail, but I do not think any district justice would refuse him bail.

Accommodation for young people between 16 and 19 years of age committed to jail has been provided at St. Patrick's and Shanganagh. I should like to know if psychiatrists could be trained to deal with these young people who have committed their first offence. I believe there is a great future for them if we have patience with them. We will do nothing if we bar them from society and if we are cruel to them, because when they are free again they will do anything they can to get their own back on society, but if society treats them in a charitable way they will react to it. There have been great advances in our time in regard to pre-discharged leave and rehabilitation of prisoners. We all agree with what the Minister is doing in this direction.

We have heard a good deal about the closing of Garda stations. I agree with the last speaker that the gardaí are doing a wonderful job in Dublin and in the country. They have done a lot of good work in regard to youth clubs. When one is faced with the problem of crime prevention in populous areas it becomes necessary to have more gardaí in those areas. If it was proposed to close a Garda station in County Dublin I and my colleagues representing the area would receive a number of representations from people who did not want that to happen for the simple reason that the gardaí attached to the station have become part of the community there. Nevertheless, there is a serious situation. Gardaí cannot be trained overnight. There should be a spirit of co-operation and some of the gardaí who have been sent to rural areas should be brought back to the city even if that involves a reduction in Garda personnel in some other district.

The suggestion is made that all the courts in Dublin county should be made metropolitan courts. Under the existing licensing laws nobody can open a public house within a mile of another public house in rural County Dublin. If the courts were to be made metropolitan courts that point of the licensing laws would not have any validity in rural County Dublin. Therefore, I have discussed this matter with the Minister for Justice. The Minister has not made any decision on it as yet. In making his decision, I hope he will protect the people on whose behalf we speak in this House.

I am not a lawyer but it is a matter of common sense that there are certain cases where it should not be necessary to call very busy people for jury service. Solicitor and counsel for both sides and the judge should be adequate for certain cases. I am in favour of having a jury system but I do feel that the panel for jury service should be extended. At the present time it is a very narrow panel. There are some people who have been called quite often to serve on a jury. The State should be in a position to compensate persons who have lost money by reason of such service. I realise that there is a reluctance to call people who would lose wages but sometimes registrars have no option.

The question of malicious injury has been discussed at great length. It is a serious matter for local authorities. Until the law is changed, I cannot say anything about it.

The old question arises as to the Department of Justice taking over courthouses. In some cases local authorities use courthouses for office purposes. There are a number of courthouses that are not used for such purposes and that are in a bad state of repair and district justices object to sitting in them. The condition of some courthouses leaves a lot to be desired.

I want to thank the Chair for calling me and to congratulate the Minister for Justice and his staff on their good work.

Mr. O'Higgins

Deputy Burke has given his views on this important Estimate and has congratulated everybody within hailing distance. I am afraid I cannot share with Deputy Burke the instant bonhomie which he exudes in this House in relation to all the problems, multifarious as they are, with which he has to deal in his 24 hours working period as a Deputy.

Mr. O'Kennedy

It only proves that charity is not a lost virtue.

Mr. O'Higgins

Indeed, charity stops me from saying anything more.

The debate on the Estimate for the Department of Justice is and should be an important and significant debate because it concerns the Minister who is responsible not only for law and order but also for the settling of conventions and codes of behaviour between different citizens and different sections of our community. It is perhaps to some extent significant in view of what I am going to say later on that as a curtain raiser to this debate we had last week the Minister for Justice availing of the opportunity of a parliamentary question to launch an astounding attack on Radio Telefís Éireann. That attack, and the manner in which it was mounted, the Minister using a parliamentary question for his own fell purpose, left many people wondering about the competence of the present Minister to hold the very onerous, responsible and serious office that he occupies.

Mr. Cluskey

Hear, hear.

Mr. O'Higgins

Since he answered that question in the way in which he did every Deputy who listened to him has a responsibility to react. I do not know, and I doubt very much if the Minister knows, the precise manner in which the team from RTE investigated this problem, but what concerns me and what should concern the Minister and every Deputy is the fact that a particular team drew attention to and disclosed a serious, pernicious, and chronic social problem in our community.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Hear, hear.

Mr. O'Higgins

That appears to me to be the most significant and relevant factor in that particular programme, a programme the Minister attacked. I listened to the Minister's reply and to his replies to supplementaries: at no stage did he appear to be concerned that RTE had, in fact, told the ordinary people of a pernicious, social evil existing at the moment and having existed over many years. Listening to the Minister's replies, that did not appear to be either relevant or pertinent. All he was concerned with was that those in the programme were paid and got a drink. The fact is there is illegal moneylending going on. The fact is that, in order to borrow £5, one pays back £1 per week and the rate of interest paid to these extortionists works out at £1,230 per year. What, in the name of the Lord, is the Department of Justice doing about that? Sweet Fanny Adams! Nothing whatsoever. Therein lay the Minister's indignation: not at the fact that RTE were paying a fee to a few people to act a part, not at the fact that those few people were getting a drink for acting a part, but at the fact that RTE drew attention to this particular social problem, a social problem about which the Minister and his Department should have been doing something. That was the source of the indignation. That is why we had this generous—generous, meaning openhanded—attack on RTE and everyone associated with it. They were told they had stepped out of line because they had the temerity to disclose a social problem, a problem that should have concerned the Department of Justice, if things were being run properly. Underlying it all was the voice of the bully and the dictator: "Don't you ever try to do it again". I hope that those in charge of RTE and those in charge of this kind of programme will stand up and be counted. I hope they will refuse to be intimidated by any individual, no matter who he is or what position he occupies, if they are doing something fairly and objectively in relation to our community, something aimed at raising our standards here and ending social abuses.

I do not know anything about the Minister's allegations in relation to the manner in which their information was obtained. If the Minister thinks it was wrongly obtained then, as a member of the Government, let him set up a committee of inquiry to inquire into the whole thing, but do not let him come into this House to make charges and allegations contrived to ensure that in relation to areas of this kind an independent body will be forced into subservience, which ultimately means lethargy and doing nothing, intimidated into the futile situation of never taking the initiative. As I say, I hope they will stand up and be counted. I hope they will continue to do what is in the long run, I believe, in the interests of the betterment of our community.

The Minister in the course of matters more relevant to his duties as Minister referred to the need for law reform. Every Minister for Justice, as a matter of pious duty, has made that kind of reference every year for many years. We are all against sin though most of us are sinners; we are all in favour of law reform, though not one of us can claim Justinian as our name.

Mr. Keating

I can.

Mr. O'Higgins

Pace Deputy Keating. The Minister talked about law reform as if he had been suddenly smitten by the Holy Spirit and he will provide an instant measure of tremendous relief for the oppressed litigious classes in the country. That is all very well. Everyone can have sympathy with the Minister's concern, but there is the danger that we can allow our sympathy to lead us into gross absurdity. I do not believe people are suffering tremendous pangs of mind and body because of our present legal system. There is a great deal of good in the manner in which we conduct our litigation. There are areas in which improvement can be made. There are details which can be dealt with for the betterment of community relations. There is a great deal that can be done, but I do not think the situation is such as to cry out for drastic and radical change. I would be interested to learn if any Deputies have any views to the contrary. Whatever need there may be for reform this is a situation in which one must hasten slowly.

Let me remind Deputies who may be under the impression that the Minister is embarking on a new crusade that the Minister's predecessor some six or seven years ago established a committee, as was the right thing to do, composed of laymen, solicitors, practising barristers and judges to advise on the reform of court procedures. That committee is presided over by a supreme court judge. I am not a member of the committee but I have given evidence before it as have other practitioners in the law. It surprises me that the Minister at no stage referred to that committee or made any reference to the fact, as I believe it to be so, that this committee have submitted to the Minister a number of reports during the past six or seven years. Where are these reports? They are gathering dust in the Department of Justice. I do not believe that one of these reports detailing the views of those who know the score, those who are concerned with the administration of justice in this country, who are concerned with the functioning of our courts and who are drawn from a broad section of the population, has ever been read by the Minister for Justice.

Yet, the Minister goes down to the solicitors' apprentices in County Mayo blowing his trumpet like a new Irish Justinian and talking about law reform. If the Minister would start reading some of the reports from the existing Committee on Law Reform and doing something about them he would be serving the dignity of his office and the exigencies of our society a lot better.

In a report in the Irish Press of 10th November the Minister is headlined under these headings: “Solicitor-barrister ‘merger’ proposed”, “Unified profession planned in reforms” and then there is this statement in black ink:

The Government is considering plans for a unified legal profession which would eliminate the present distinctions between solicitors and barristers, empower solicitors to plead before every court in the country and make them eligible for appointment as Circuit Court judges.

The Government is considering plans for a unified legal profession in this country. May I ask what are these plans? Perhaps, the Minister might tell the House exactly what they are. With whom has the Minister consulted? He has certainly not consulted with the Bar of Ireland, certainly not with the committee on court procedure and certainly not with the solicitors' profession. Under what form is the Government considering this plan for a unified legal profession?

One member of the Bar speaking on Radio Éireann, I think it was, asserted that no such plan or proposal had yet been considered by the Government or had even been tendered. Under what circumstances does the Minister for Justice make a big fellow of himself by asserting that a proposal for a unified legal profession is being considered by the Government if, in fact, it can be asserted that it is not so? I do not believe that the Government ever had any such proposal before them and that the Minister is speaking completely and utterly out of turn in so saying.

I can understand the Minister's speech. Probably he had not seen it before he made it. It was written for him by those who are too readily available to write scripts for the Minister. Traditionally, the Executive in Ireland has sought to destroy and end the Bar of Ireland. When I say the Executive in Ireland I am not referring merely to the past 50 years. I am certain that Dublin Castle would well have wished that a man like John Philpot Curran had never had the power and the independence and the right to speak up in Green Street for those whom the Executive had sought to condemn and Daniel O'Connell and many hundreds of others who in their own way and to the extent of their own talents refused to bow down to bureaucracy in this country.

I entirely agree. It is in complete and utter chaos. If Deputy Desmond will just wait to listen, he will hear the reason. I would invite the Minister for Justice, if he is concerned with this problem, to make an inquiry in relation to the Attorney-General's office. I am certain he will find, on inquiry, that in relation to the Attorney-General's concern which arises from time to time where a firm of lawyers in America has to be consulted on behalf of an Irish citizen here, the result now is that some firm is engaged—they are now the attorneys-acting—and they themselves frequently say: "We are not specialists in that particular field and so we have engaged our good friends Messrs. So-and-So" and these good friends also have good friends. The result, in America, is that frequently a litigant, by reason of the specialisation, ends up with two or three large firms of attorneys acting for him.

Does the Minister for Justice think this is the kind of thing we should have here in this country? In fact, strange to say, the thinking in America has been so concerned with the chaos —I use Deputy Desmond's words——

Mr. Desmond

Because it is not unified. It should be. That would prevent chaos, as in Ireland.

Mr. O'Higgins

The Minister went on to indicate other views on other subjects. He spoke about legal training. The report of his speech says:

His own view was that we must seriously examine the possibility of divorcing the university or law school training from the practical training. We must see whether we could produce better solicitors by insisting on a university degree in law before the prospective solicitor entered a solicitor's office at all. The degree, he said, would be the only educational qualification required for solicitors and barristers. If this was acceptable, there might be no need for the law schools at present operated by the Benchers of King's Inns and by the Incorporated Law Society.

That is a very interesting view. He wanted to separate the academic training in law from the practical training in law. Again, may I ask who wrote this rubbish? I am sorry the Minister is not present because I would like to tell him to his face that that proposed piece of reform took place in Ireland many years ago. Apparently the Minister for Justice has not yet heard about it.

May I say, for the record, that both teaching institutions, the Incorporated Solicitors and the Benchers years ago entered into arrangements with the university law schools to provide the academic teaching in the university schools while the practical training in the practical, scientific subjects is divorced entirely from the academic. The Minister announced to the provincial solicitors in Galway that his view was that this should take place as a measure of law reform. I do not understand how anyone, who has not even taken the trouble to study what the score is at the moment, can trot out that kind of nonsense in relation to a serious matter of this kind. For some years there has been a separation between the academic and the practical and that is the way in which our law schools are now functioning. The Minister went on to say that he thought the securing of a degree in an academic law subject should be a prerequisite to anyone becoming a solicitor's apprentice or a law student.

That is again untrue. I told those concerned that Saturday was a traditional day for constituents of mine to come from all over south Mayo to see me and that I did see them where I have always seen them in the office which I own. That was the point I made and not on any question of practice.

Mr. O'Higgins

If the Minister says that I accept it but, again, it underlines what I am saying. If the Minister continues to have an office and if he sees people in the office on a Saturday having objected to solicitor's offices in Castlebar closing on Saturday, it is bound to lead to the misconception which I have mentioned. The only way that things should be done is for any member of Government no matter what his profession may be, once he becomes a member of Government, to cease to practise. I assert that the Minister has not ceased to practise. I assert that he has continued to practise and I think that is wrong. It is reprehensible in my view from the point of view of appearances and I do not think it is right. I think it is bound to lead to a lot of misconceptions and I, obviously, have fallen into two of them.

I am quite certain that the Minister has done it bona fide and, indeed, I can feel the greatest possible sympathy for any professional man who has built up a practice. It is always the result of hard work and personal dedication and it is not an easy thing to see something which you have built up over many years just melt away as a result of the efforts of those against whom you have competed successfully. These are the things we have to face. It is a high office in this country to be a member of Government and there should be high standards and one of those things should be that you are removed from any possibility of your action or your standards or anything you do being misconstrued. In particular, if I were to differentiate at all amongst members of Government, it seems to me utterly astounding that the Minister for Justice should be a practising solicitor. I think it is wrong and I can only hope that the Minister will find it possible to rethink his position.

I agree that in many cases where if a busy solicitor, as the Minister undoubtedly was and, perhaps is, becomes a member of Government he must have a period in which he will have to make arrangements to deal with the consequences. But what I object to is a settled determination, irrespective of being a member of Government that you continue to practise your profession in the ordinary way. I do not think it is right and I suggest it should be changed.

As a newcomer it is not my task I think—and I am not equipped—to suggest adequately the mechanism by which this might more effectively be done, but, as someone entirely outside the legal profession, I feel the need to utter this reaction to the legal profession. As a member of the public it is incumbent on me to do so at the first opportunity. I do not want to elaborate that point further but I think it is the most crucial one that has come up so far in the debate.

I want to move away from that now. A number of Deputies mentioned the question of the pay and conditions and training of the Garda. It is a matter for legitimate pride that in a period of half a century, inheriting a situation in which the police were inevitably the organ of the oppression of the populace, and, therefore, loathed—in that relevantly short period, much shorter than a lifetime—we have been able to have our Garda unarmed. This is a matter for great self-congratulation.

Mr. O'Higgins

Hear, hear.

Mr. Keating

It is a matter on which we can make very just and proper comparisons with places close to us. It is a matter for great pride that we have an acceptance of the Garda and a respect for them and even—although at times not enough, perhaps—a willingness to help them in difficult situations. That is excellent. We must reciprocate as legislators and as a populace at large by a willingness to provide them with better conditions in every way.

Specifically it seems to me, without a profound knowledge, that many of the pension arrangements, and particularly the pension arrangements with regard to Garda widows, are more complex and also more grudging than they need be. It would cost very little and I certainly think it would make a saving in administration, were there to be a simplification in a generous and benevolent way in the whole matter of pensions for gardaí and their dependants.

I should like to make an observation in relation to the Garda which I think is particularly relevant having regard to the direction and evolution of public attitudes at the moment. We see young people all over the world claiming the right to demonstrate. In my opinion, this is a profoundly important and absolutely basic and central human right, and we must do nothing in legislation to limit that right. We have seen that, because wide sections of the community and particularly the young are now claiming that right more freely than was the practice, perhaps, ten or 15 years ago, the police authorities in many countries, not traditionally equipped and not specially trained to deal with situations of proper and legitimate and, almost invariably, peaceful demonstrations, are over-reacting and provoking violence, and provoking a subsequent backlash on the part of demonstrators who did not want to get into a fight with the police but who wanted to make a proper legitimate protest.

I want to make the point that all over the world techniques are being evolved for dealing with these demonstrations which are by intention generally peaceful. I hope that our Garda authorities here, through the Minister, will acquaint themselves to the highest possible degree with the techniques that are being evolved internationally. It is important that we should make the point that where violence has occurred it has come frequently not from the demonstrators who generally are people of what one might call a left political opinion, but from those who want to deny the demonstrators the right to demonstrate. Generally, violence in the streets around the world has been coming from the right and not from the left. It seems to me to be very important that the police should learn the techniques of the legitimate protection of buildings and persons without the sort of violence which will cause proper protest to pass over into a sharper form of confrontation. That is a matter for forethought, for technique, for training, for studying the methods that have been evolved elsewhere.

I want to turn now to the matter of the Minister and the Seven Days programme not, I want to assure you, Sir, to discuss the content of the programme which I did not see, and not to discuss the internal affairs of RTE which are entirely outside the scope of this debate, but to consider the action of the Minister in the Dáil in a reply to a parliamentary question: first his material in that reply, secondly the material of certain of his interjections when Deputy Fitzpatrick was speaking on this Estimate and, thirdly, the observations made by Deputy Burke earlier in the debate today.

Perhaps, I should start with Deputy Burke first. He said he was interpreting the Minister's reply and that at no time did he—he being the Minister—say anything against the journalists in Seven Days who, said Deputy Burke, were honourable and decent men. I agree with Deputy Burke that they are honourable and decent men in my experience in so far as I know them. You could have fooled me—and I was listening to the Minister's parliamentary answer—that he did not at any time say anything against the journalists on Seven Days. Not only could you have fooled me but you could have fooled the whole of the Press of Ireland. I should like to quote some of the Press reaction of 20th November of this year. I want to quote from the three Dublin daily newspapers in this context.

The Irish Times said in a headline: “Ó Moráin denounces RTE presentation.” It said in the text of an article that “Mr. Ó Moráin described the RTE Seven Days broadcast last week as a phoney programme.” That was the opinion of the journalists in the Irish Times. In my opinion, and I was here at the time, this was a very fair préis of the general mood and tone of the Minister's observations.

The Irish Press in a leader of the same day said that “the programme had revealed a state of affairs which exists to a considerable degree.”

Arthur Noonan, writing in the Irish Independent of the same date, said.

How on earth could the Government's reaction be so far removed from that of all sections of the public? The hard fact is that there is illegal money-lending racketeering in Dublin, that we hear every day of cases of hardship attributable to it, and that the picture presented to us by Seven Days was broadly in keeping with what has been conveyed to us over the years by word of mouth.

That last observation corresponds with my own experience, what I have heard myself, not as a Deputy for a city constituency but as a Deputy for a constituency which contains many people who have moved out into new housing developments from parts of the city centre. What the Minister said was not simply a statement of facts or alleged facts as passed to him by the Garda; it was a statement that contained some of these alleged facts but which also contained many value judgments, many expressions of feeling and opinion, a statement which was delivered with a certain style, vigour and attack which did indicate to all of those of us who witnessed him a judgment, an opinion, on his part as to the credibility of some of the alleged facts he had recounted to us.

That is the truth. We have had only about half a dozen prosecutions over the last five years.

Mr. Keating

I think that is a reasonable inference from what the Minister said. However, now I want to turn to what is, from my point of view, even more serious. I am quoting again from the Minister's answer:

The statements given to the Garda set out details of the ways that people concerned were approached and of how they were told that they would be paid to say these things.

Let me repeat: "of how they were told they would be paid to say these things"; not that they would be paid for going to the station, for giving their time or for appearing in the programme, but "that they would be paid to say these things". The form of the Minister's words indicates to me that he believes that the staff of RTE offered the money as an inducement aimed at influencing the content of what the people had to say; they were being given money to say certain things.

Mr. Moran

I did not say the staff of RTE; I said agents and others.

Mr. Keating

All right. We shall come to that in a moment. Speaking of a particular person he says:

His statements on the programme were without foundation of any kind and were made solely because he was paid for making them.

The same implication, that someone or other—and we shall deal with who it was in a moment—paid this person in order to influence the contents of what he said.

Then the Minister says:

There was evidence that drink had been supplied.

I do not know if the Minister himself is a total abstainer or if he has a particular abhorrence for alcohol but it is a traditional part of Irish culture to take advantage of the relaxation, pleasure and sense of social contact that is given by imbibing a little alcohol. It would be difficult to find a television programme—I suspect the Minister is well aware of this—where drink has not been supplied——

Mr. Moran

I am not talking about drink being supplied at Montrose; I am talking about drink being supplied in back streets in Dublin——

Mr. Desmond

I believe that is where it is normally consumed.

Mr. Moran

——to people going on this programme, people who claimed they were well jarred because of the amount of booze given them before going on the programme.

Mr. Desmond

That is a condition not unknown to Members of this House.

Mr. Keating

As a person who has been quite extensively involved in programme-making, I know if one goes to talk to someone about a programme it is not unusual, it is not unknown, it is not surprising—and it is not improper, in my opinion—that that conversation should take place in a public house with the consumption of liquor. I see nothing improper in that, but I do see something improper in the Minister's innuendo, I am bound to say.

I want to turn now from the ministerial answer on the 19th to the occasion on the 21st November, 1969, when Deputy Fitzpatrick was speaking to the Estimates which we are now discussing. There was some interjection from the Minister and there was some discussion across the floor of the House. The Minister had had 48 hours, he had had adverse press publicity— even from papers that he might not normally expect to find hostile to himself. He had had time to reflect, he had had time to change his mind if he wished; he had had time, if he so desired, to take up a posture such as we heard Deputy Burke take up in the House today, that no accusations were made and that everyone really misheard the Minister for Justice. The Minister said, and I quote again, "I gave the facts. I made no remarks." He did not really mean that he made no remarks; what he meant was that he gave the facts but offered no opinion.

Mr. Moran

About those who appeared.

Mr. Keating

But I have been spending a little time suggesting that the Minister did offer opinions and did offer judgments. There are two sets of stories in this. The first as told by participants in a programme to RTE and through RTE to the public; and the second as told by these people to the Garda. That these two versions are not identical need surprise no one. But that we are at this moment in time in a position to judge as to which is the correct version, I doubt. I am suggesting that the Minister did so judge and did pass on his value judgment to this House, which was much more than facts.

In that same exchange with Deputy Fitzpatrick the Minister said that the people responsible for making the programme sold this yarn to the public and that some of the participants in the programme were "patently liars and paid to say these things." That brings me to the heart of the charge I want to make, which seems to me a profoundly serious one far transcending the question of RTE, or a particular programme, because we have to ask ourselves—we are entitled to ask ourselves—about the motivation of the Minister in the conduct of his office. We are under an obligation to those we represent to analyse the Minister's motives.

I understand that there was another case, the fluoridation case, in which the notetaker in court died and in that case the matter was apparently brought to a decision by an agreed transcript being prepared or an agreement being come to by the parties as to what should be put, but I understand that the lawyers for the defendants in this action, who were the people who wanted the amalgamation, are unable to get the lawyers for the plaintiffs to agree to what this transcript should be. This is an administrative matter and it is of grave significance to the future of our society because most people will agree that there are too many trade unions. This is the opinion and this is why the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, essentially, is in existence.

There is, of course, a large sum in the Vote for the administrative side of the courts and this is essentially an administrative matter that I am speaking about, so to arrange the administrative side of this matter that the case can be heard by the Supreme Court. I would appeal to the Minister and his Department to make the necessary arrangements with the registrar of the Supreme Court, if he is the officer concerned, in regard to the missing part of the transcript which, I understand, in the judgment of Mr. Justice Teevan was bypassed, said to be of no great significance, but apparently the case cannot be brought to trial and therefore there can be no further amalgamation of trade unions until this case is disposed of and the only way it can be disposed of is by being heard by the Supreme Court.

Mr. Sweetman

I shall not detain the House very long. I only want to refer to one specific matter. Perhaps after the office of Taoiseach the office of Minister for Justice is one in which it is absolutely essential for the public good that the administration of that office should show clearly in the head of it that justice is being done, that law is being obeyed and, to put it in the ordinary way that we speak of, that in the person of the Minister for Justice there is an example given to everyone. That is more important in the Department of Justice than in any Department other than that of the Taoiseach.

People are sometimes prone to criticise the lawyers, even to criticise justice but unless justice is dealt with even-handedly, unless the representation of justice is kept at all times, then it is the small man who will suffer, not the big one. It is, for that reason, vitally essential that the Minister for Justice in all his actions and, most particularly, in the actions which he carries out or purports to carry out as Minister for Justice should show an example.

"Office of the Minister for Justice, Dublin, 14th May: Dear Mr. So-and-So, I called to see you on Monday evening——

Mr. Sweetman

I attach no blame whatever to that lady but I say categorically that anybody who writes a letter like that should not be entrusted with responsibility for the administration of the Department of Justice. I say the Taoiseach, when he reads this letter, will feel that the writer of that letter should not be the person entrusted with the job of dealing with justice in Ireland.

Mr. Desmond

Having heard Deputy Sweetman and having heard the clear allegation of Deputy O'Higgins that the Minister for Justice is practising as a solicitor, notwithstanding his ministerial office, and having heard and seen the Minister's extraordinary performance in relation to RTE quite recently, and having watched him at one end of the street in Westport during the PR campaign, when he and I exchanged pleasantries on our system of election, I have come to the conclusion, quite frankly, that this House would be much better off and in a much safer position from the point of view of security, justice and social improvement if the Taoiseach would, in fact, politely remove the present Minister for Justice from office. I think his removal is long overdue.

I do not propose this evening to deal with the RTE affair because there are questions down on tomorrow's Order Paper. However, we in the Labour Party, like the Fine Gael Party, resent and deplore the serious implications made by the Minister against certain members of RTE and never withdrawn. There will be an opportunity tomorrow afternoon to withdraw and I hope the Minister will do so with a good grace in the light of his ministerial office. The Minister's insolence and arrogance are most unbecoming.

The Estimates for the Department of Justice are presented in a most unsatisfactory manner. The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries can give information about agriculture. In anything pertaining to the Department of Justice there is no method of finding out what is actually happening in relation to the administration of justice. There is no annual report. Deputies should be in a position long before the Estimate comes before the House to have all the salient features at their fingertips. There is a scarcity of statistics and information. There seems to be no research. There are no memoranda on law reform, on the treatment of prisoners, and penology and so on. There is no information on a whole range of subjects on which one would expect the most comprehensive data from the Department of Justice. I hold the Minister and his Department at fault in not making essential information available to Members of this House. We are debarred from approaching departmental officials. We cannot ask any officer of the Department of Justice for information. We must do it through the Minister's private secretary. This is a practice which does not obtain in any other Government Department and, from that point of view alone, it is all the more necessary that we should have available to us much more information from the Department of Justice.

Mr. P.J. Lenihan

Are we discussing forthcoming legislation on the Estimate?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Any legislation not before the House cannot be dealt with on the Estimate.

Mr. Desmond

I am talking about the concept of public order which is of immense importance to the Estimate. I am sure that Deputy Lenihan in his younger days stood by the acceptance of the right to protest as, indeed, he developed it in the midlands in his earlier and more politically active associations with his party.

It is the fundamental function of the police force in any city to ensure that those who wish to protest have the right to protest and that public order is maintained during any particular demonstration but I detect the authoritarian reaction on the part of the Minister and on the part of some people in public life to inhibit the development of these protest. As Deputy Keating rightly pointed out, it is necessary that members of the Garda Síochána be fully, effectively and competently trained in the tactics of crowd control and general demonstration control as that particular phenomenon developes and as it is likely to develop in the years ahead. It will develop if we in this House do not give the electorate the confidence that essential and real issues of politics are being discussed within the House as, I think, is happening during the course of the debate this evening.

Turning to another aspect of the Minister's speech, I refer now to the granting of bail. I detect here an attitude on the part of the Minister which I consider to be open to considerable public objection. I can see the point made by the Minister in that some 214 persons who were granted bail by the courts committed more than 900 fresh offences while awaiting trial. However, I put it to the Minister that it was not right in cases of applications for bail to bring before the court the full previous history of convictions. That is not a desirable judicial practice. We can imagine a situation in which a person convicted for an offence ten years ago is before a court seeking bail and the Garda authorities and the state solicitor dig up offences of ten, 15 or 20 years ago and put them before the judge as a reason why bail should not be granted. This kind of action by the Minister is worthy of no support in this House. The Minister suggested that previous bad character and the views of responsible police officers as to the likelihood of further criminal acts should be generally disclosed to the courts. I am opposed to this because anybody appearing who has been convicted previously will have served his sentence and endured the punishments meted out in our black and white kind of society. I strongly suggest that the Minister seriously reconsiders his general approach to this matter.

I shall deal with a number of aspects referred to by the Minister. Any country such as ours which can afford to build lavish office blocks in which to house State officials and which can afford to rent office blocks at very high prices should consider the facilities available to prison officers. I suggest that it is about time the feudal and Victorian structures of Mountjoy, Limerick and Portlaoise were considered. I do not think it would require that many millions of pounds to effect necessary changes in our system.

I am very much concerned that there is nothing but a very cursory reference in the Minister's statement to the work done by prison staff notwithstanding the fact that the number of prisoners has increased to a daily average of 615 persons. There should be a much greater concern on the part of the Minister to ensure that the pay, conditions and other material resources of the service, particularly living conditions and working conditions of prison staffs, are such as would be likely to attract and retain in the service of our prisons men and women of the highest quality whom we must have there if we are to develop a modern and effective penal system in this country. The conditions of service of prison officers and analogous grades and, indeed, of governors themselves have not been reviewed as progessively as they should have been reviewed long before now. I strongly commend this to the Minister.

I welcome the Minister's statement about the introduction of a system of pre-discharge leave for well-behaving inmates serving a long sentence. The semi-open institution in Shanganagh in County Dublin is very necessary. It is to be strongly welcomed by this House. While apparently it is still very much at the experimental stage I feel that, by and large, this institution is well worthy of support and commendation by this House.

As regards the other prisons, I think that very many quite unnecessary unpleasant conditions and features still exist in them, particularly in the older prisons. I have in mind the constricting walls of grim Victorian fortresses which were meant for a population very much not in keeping with the size of the prison population today. I have in mind, too, the old practice of prison dress and the archaic systems of prison censorship and supervision. I have in mind unpaid labour and also the very low rates for labour by prisoners. I have in mind the discharge and post-discharge facilities for prisoners in this country. While officialdom may deem these out-of-date procedures to be necessary evils associated with the prison system we operate in this country, my view is that generally they represent a continuation of an outmoded policy of degradation and punishment which a modern enlightened community should re-assess.

I think that in Ireland there is almost an obsession that transgressors must automatically suffer in a very personal sense. There seems to be a kind of anxiety that, unless a transgressor is made to suffer very vividly for a crime, he will not be transformed to the extent to which the public would like to see him transformed. It is a peculiar perversion of Christian philosophy which is not acceptable in penal practice in any civilised community today. We have a situation which calls for a very considerable revision of our prison practices.

As a trade union officer, I have visited Mountjoy—not very often I must confess. One of the most difficult problems in prison management generally concerns the payment of prisoners for their work—a matter not referred to in the Minister's speech. The United Nations Organisation has laid down specific minimum rates for prison work. That organisation states that there shall be a system of fair and equitable remuneration for work by prisoners and this may be interpreted as an economic rate for the job by the prisoner. I suggest there is absolutely no good social reason why any prisoner in Ireland today should not receive wages on the same basis as workers outside prison. I recommend this fundamental change in penal practice to the Minister. There would be a deduction for the maintenance of the prisoner in prison and naturally portion would be deducted for the maintenance of his dependants. There is a crying need to ensure that when a man leaves prison he does not leave with a naked insurance card labelling him for the rest of his life. An insurance stamp should be maintained on his insurance card for the duration of his prison sentence so that he can go to an employer without having a penalty imposed on him for the rest of his employment life. I consider likewise that when men are paid in prison part of the money should be kept for their release and some of it should be kept for expenditure in prison. How can we as a nation in all conscience, in any concept of Christianity, hope to reform men, hope to elevate men involved in crime—30 per cent of them are involved in crimes of a repetitive nature—unless we are prepared to place elementary civilised trust in them to encourage them to get back to the concept of working for a living when they come out of prison?

It was generally accepted in Ireland that work for prisoners should be made as difficult and as hard as possible. That policy has been abandoned somewhat and it should be completely abolished. I suggest to the Minister that we must get beyond the concept of giving work to prisoners just to keep them out of mischief, so that when we find ourselves with men who are allegedly lazy and who allegedly will not work we give them work of a menial nature. There should be a complete re-assessment by the Miniter of the question of work in prison. I would suggest also that work of the highest possible industrial skill should, as far as possible, be done within the confines of the prison walls. I have the greatest admiration for the prison governors and their staffs and for the craft instructors who have to do the work of training prisoners in industrial skills under conditions which are feudal and completely cramped, where they have no facilities to develop elementary skills among our prison population. We must, therefore, change the whole system and realign it with normal community life. I likewise recommend to the Minister that we must get away, as we have now got away in the case of the Shanganagh semi-open institution, from the concept of maximum security and fortress-type prisons.

The United Nations in its report on the prevention of crime and the treatment of prisoners as far back as 1955 defined an open prison as characterised by the absence of material or physical precautions against general escape such as walls, locks, bars, armed and other special security guards, where a system of elementary self-discipline and the inmate's self-responsibility tends to keep him within the group in which he lives. The Minister and his staff should consider this development in Britain and throughout the world. It may indeed cut across some of the more authoritarian views of the treatment of prisoners in this country. I would recommend to the Minister that he should inform the House of the arrangements made both legally and administratively to secure that prisoners when they leave prison are kept fully insured under social insurance. It is absolutely necessary that we make sure that the cards which they receive do not bear any stigma.

Deputy Keating dealt with legal aid. I must confess that I found Deputy O'Higgins's attitude to legal aid rather smug, rather self-complacent and rather typically "barrister-ish", if I may say so. I see no good reason why one should have to depend on a cold hand-out of charity from a barrister because one does not have the money to ensure that one is professionally and effectively represented in a court of law. I consider that that kind of "do-gooder" approach in the legal profession is not, in the year 1969, the kind of arrangement which we should have. Since April 1965 there has existed a scheme which provides free legal assistance for accused persons who have insufficient means. This has been in operation in all courts hearing criminal cases. I would strongly suggest that a system of legal aid in respect of civil charges should be brought in. That there should be advice available, not necessarily on the British basis whereby one must go to a committee of lawyers and satisfy them that one has reasonable grounds for proceeding against somebody, but on the basis of a general State system of legal aid for litigants, so that lack of money would not prevent anybody from ensuring that his legal and civil rights were enforceable in a court of law.

We have been quite hard on the Minister for Justice during the debate on this Estimate and rightly so. We have flogged him in some respects. However, he deserves congratulations on one matter which is of considerable importance, namely, his outlining the necessity to ensure that the legal profession, as far as in practicable, should become a unified legal profession. I am well aware that many barristers, particularly in the Fine Gael Party, will bitterly resent this alleged instrusion into their particular closed shop but I know of no good reason why solicitors should not have full right of audience in our courts and I know of no good reason why there should be this sacrosanct elevation and separateness from the public of barristers in this country.

I must confess I find it rather amusing that there should be, in respect of a normal, non-contentious case, say, a road accident case, a small army of three barristers, two junior counsel and one solicitor on one side and three barristers, two junior counsel and one solicitor on the other side. Yet they talk about excessive employment of labour, excessive deployment and restrictive practices and the devil knows what, and still this happens in respect of cases which are almost a formality, agreed on before the defendant and the prosecution go into court in many respects, generally on a knock-for-knock basis. As far as I am concerned this a gross misuse of our legal talent, talent which could be more usefully employed for the social and economic development of the country. I know that what I am saying will not win me friends in many sectors of the legal profession but in this House we must be honest with each other and say that as far as we are concerned the courts are in dire need of being up-dated in many of their feudal, idiosyncratic legal practices, which certainly, as far as we are concerned, leave us totally and utterly unimpressed. Take, for example, the question of solicitors' fees. Walk into the Land Registry Office or go in and meet a solicitor and without any great fuss or talent one can draw up a formula—it will take only about ten minutes—in which one can transfer a folio of registered land from one person to another. What do we find? A fat fee for a solicitor arising from this particular, what I call in some respects arid, legalistic extortion.

Take, for example, suburban housing where row upon row of houses are handled by one solicitor in respect of fees. He collects for every single one and there is not a pip-squeak of public protest from any of the professions directly involved in it. In Britain the Prices and Incomes Board subjected solicitors' incomes in that country to a very rigorous scrutiny and came to a number of very proper conclusions regarding the fees of members of the legal profession. One of their proposals I consider should be implemented without question in this country. Supposing a solicitor acts in respect of, say, conveyancing for the buyer and seller, to put it as crudely as that, is there any moral or social justification why he should receive double the fee in accordance with his professional practice when in fact, as we know, there is no great extra work directly involved? He is acting directly for both parties and there is no good cause why there should not be a practice in this country that where he does a double act, if I might put it that way, he should not receive one and one-quarter times the normal fee or one and one-half times the normal fee rather than double payment every time he uses his pen in respect of both parties directly concerned.

Those are practices in respect of which I would strongly recommend a change. Where a solicitor acts for both buyer and seller, the Law Society's recommendation that a full charge should operate is not, I think, in accordance with the public interest. There is, therefore, no justification for that kind of double charge as is in general operation. I hope the Minister will go ahead with his law reform, although I must confess that in my opinion he is probably the worst possible Minister for Justice to attempt this kind of exercise because he has incurred the odium of every barrister in this country. They profoundly suspect him. He certainly has not won any great regard from the Opposition of this House. Perhaps, therefore, it would be best for him to leave this matter to the next Government.

Another matter referred to by the Minister is the increasing incidence of the use of drugs in this country and the necessary and desirable specialisation in this field on the part of a small and overworked number of gardaí. The Minister should keep this matter under constant review. In respect of drug-taking there should not be the excessive hysteria which tends to develop from time to time. Nobody feels particularly pleased at the spectacle of young teenagers emerging from notorious cafés glaze-eyed and generally high, but I wonder in many respects if it is any sadder or if it is any more undesirable socially than the sight of members of the older age-group emerging from publichouses and rolling home drunk when the bars close. We may have 300 to 400 drug addicts in this country, but remember we also have some 70,000 alcoholics. The kind of curious double standard we tend to apply in regard to the consumption of alcohol and other intoxicants sometimes puts the problem very much out of perspective.

I also note in the Minister's attitude, and in a great deal of public comment at the moment in respect of drugs, that there seems to be an idea that all that is necessary is that the laws themselves should be made as harsh, as effective and almost, one might say, as brutal as possible in terms of general conviction for drug pushing and drug possession. All this merely does in the long run is to put those addicts and those pushers back into a criminal environment. Drug trafficking is surrounded at times with the dangerous glamour of illegality and in many respects this hinders some of the urgent rehabilitation of many of the individuals directly concerned.

I would say to the Minister, and also to the Minister for Health, that one of the necessary steps to take in this country is to ensure the regulation of the manufacture and distribution of drugs through the pharmaceutical profession. I believe we need much more rigorous and more effective regulations in respect of the sale of certain drugs in this country.

An Ceann Comhairle

The regulations would be a matter for another Minister.

Mr. Desmond

I agree it is a matter for the Minister for Health and I do not propose to develop this point. However, I would point out that many drugs are quite indistinguishable from normal tablets. I consider there is a basic obligation on the Minister for Justice to consult with the Minister for Health and make sure the regulations in relation to drugs are not just those operable by the members of the Garda but also relate to the drug manufacturing firms, the importation of drugs and, above all, the distribution of drugs.

I wish now to deal with the personnel problems of the Garda. The House must initially pay tribute to the members of the force who, particularly during the past four to five months, have had to work under considerable strain in conditions which were far from satisfactory. I would suggest, having regard to the fact that the Minister, and certainly his departmental staff, have a regular 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. day, that there is a general lack of public appreciation of the Garda.

I welcome the statement by the Minister that he will have the Conroy Commission's report before the House as soon as possible. I would strongly urge the Minister to be more explicit in his reply about the date of publication of this report. It is not just good enough, in respect of a report of such major national importance, that the Minister should come before this House and indicate that "in a very few months"—whatever that means—he will be in a position to place the report before the House. I know difficult circumstances have surrounded the issue of this report but I express the hope that the Minister will issue it as soon as he receives it, even if it is in stencilled form only. Otherwise, I can assure him that when the House resumes on 8th February, or whenever we resume, there will be another question on the Order Paper asking him when publication will be. Although we had been given to believe that it would be published before Christmas, it now appears that it will be mid-February before we get it.

On the question of recruitment to the Garda, I must confess I am rather concerned about the lack of concern, Department-wise, ministerial-wise and Cabinet-wise about the inadequate, the ineffective, the quasi-militaristic style of training given to the gardaí. There should be a full review of the whole system of Garda recruitment and training in consultation with the members of the executive of the Garda Representative Body. This is overdue and there have been valuable suggestions from the Representative Body in that respect. We do not have to await the Conroy Commission report to start that exercise.

I suggest that the general system of 18 weeks training—22 weeks if necessary—in Templemore, followed by a further 18 months probation period in Garda stations is not enough. Very often during the latter period, young gardaí are shunted out to do ordinary work, so shorthanded are Garda stations of personnel. I feel sure that this period, this work, is most frustrating to young men who have just joined the force.

I am disappointed that the method of evaluating the system of recruitment of gardaí does not include in the interview boards people who have specialised training in the matter of finding out whether applicants are, temperamentally, personally suitable for recruitment. Particularly in the early days of training in Templemore, in the first month or two, there should be what I would call group evaluation or, shall we say, training therapy to make sure that there is a filter process so that there will not slip through the net into full Garda work those unstable personalities which naturally are in all walks of life, particularly in the Garda. They can have a most destructive effect on their fellow workers in the Garda Síochána. Inevitably some of them slip through the training net into full Garda work.

Therefore, there must be criticism of the Minister that there is not available within the training system job evaluators, personality assessors, call them what you will. By this I do not mean that a garda is put through the battery of intelligence tests and so on that one sees operated in many areas of employment, but in respect of recruitment of members of the Garda this is one aspect which has been completely overlooked and a matter to which the Minister should give greater attention. It would result in raising the calibre, the ability and training capacity of a large number of members of the force.

Another common complaint, and one I am satisfied is as true in Wexford, in Dublin North East or in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, is a major and justifiable one in respect of the conditions of service of members of the force, namely the absence of adequate negotiated conditions of employment instead of the system where they are handed down by departmental edict, with the ministerial imprimatur. There is need for specific provision for overtime payment and special allowances for authorised extended duty in the force.

I appreciate that there are complex organisational problems involved in payment for work done in excess of a 48-hour week, but I suggest that there is every possibility that within the competence of the Garda Representative Body and the competence of the Department there should be means by which in certain cases a payment system of direct plus-payments should be made in respect of extended hours of work. This has been particularly applicable in respect of the arduous tours of duty in recent months, which would not have been tolerated by the vast majority of industrial and public service employees throughout the country.

I specifically ask the Minister—or the Parliamentary Secretary if I may intrude on his discussion with the Deputy from Wexford, in view of the Minister's absence at the moment— to indicate his view on the question of overtime payment and cash allowances therefor.

Another very thorny and difficult problem is the internal promotional appointments system within the Garda Síochána. I am equally critical of this aspect in the operation of the force. I am not unduly critical or unhappy about the double interview system plus examination in respect of the appointment of sergeants. Not being a specialist in this field, I would find it difficult to say how the interviews system could be broadened to make sure that no sergeant or prospective sergeant was "done" in terms of appointment. However, I have reservations about the system as regards the appointment of the higher grades, such as superintendents, divisional superintendents and inspectors.

In respect of the appointment of senior Garda officers there does not seem to be even elementary job evaluation in respect of those who offer themselves for appointments. The procedure in relation to these appointments is completely hidebound. In this matter a great obligation devolves on the Minister to ensure that temperamental and administrative capacities are considered and that personnel completely beyond reproach are appointed.

There is urgent need, therefore, to get rid of the idea that because a sergeant going up the line may get two-or three-or fifty-minute interviews with senior officers of superior status he is automatically suitable for general appointment. Therefore, we need the introduction of, I would say, personnel specialists into this area. I am also concerned that from time to time very serious allegations have been made, very persistent rumours have arisen and strong assertions have been made in public life that the political influence of members of the Garda, their lineage or their parenthood or party sympathy or local county connection, plays a role in excess of any normal importance in respect of Garda promotions and selective transfers. Some appointments which I have observed—and, indeed, one senior appointment recently—have not allayed my fears in that regard. Therefore, there is a very positive obligation on the Minister to take action. Seeing that he is so much immersed in attending the High Court in Galway and so much concerned about continuing his own practice as a solicitor, I am not so hopeful that he will accept my proposition which is to broaden the personnel of various interview boards or, if necessary, bring in public appointments specialists from outside for the appointment of senior Garda officers.

I would not suggest that the situation is as bad as it is in the Army which stinks to Heaven in terms of promotions, transfers and political bureaucracy. We are all familiar with many aspects of that matter which will come up in relation to the Estimate for the Department of Defence. There is an urgent need for more effective ministerial intervention in regard to that aspect of Garda organisation. I am equally concerned that where officers are transferred from one division to another there should be forward planning and consultation. Although there may be emergency situations as, for instance, in the case of Border patrols, the urgent setting up of road blocks and so on, or urgent divisional requirements, there should generally be sufficient forward planning to avoid the family disruption and general distress and excessively short notice very often given to gardaí with a blasé dismissal of their rights and family obligations. Many of the transfers and changes that have taken place have not been carried out with adequate prior notice and consultation of those concerned.

Where special duty is required as in the emergency Border situation or prolonged searches arising from serious crime incidents, or continuous road blocks, I suggest that adequate facilities be provided for hot meals and snacks for gardaí. This is not special pleading on my part for the gardaí: if we can give it to the Army the gardaí should also be entitled to it. I strongly recommend and fully support the statement that in no circumstances should the Garda be armed even if there is a rash of armed robberies. I am opposed to the arming of the Garda and I have no doubt that the Garda Representative Body would not wish to see this function devolving on themselves because, as we know, the disadvantages very much outweigh the general advantages.

Finally, in relation to the police force, I come down to two aspects which I consider controversial aspects, the first being the operation of the Special Branch internally in the Garda Síochána, a particular section with which I have had contact from time to time. The contact was on their part with me in relation to demonstrations et cetera. There is a total absence in the Minister's speech of reference to the existence of this force and I want to distinguish very sharply between the existence of this force and the operation of the gardaí themselves. I suggest that the complete ignorance on the part of the House of the fact that there is a special security force, both in relation to crime and in relation to political affairs, in existence within the police force is not something that we can shrug off with a nominal Estimate.

I remember the late Deputy Everett telling me that when he became Minister for Justice he found four-fifths of the filing cabinets in his rooms empty when he took over and that he often wondered what reports they contained from the Special Branch to the Minister who inhabited the premises prior to his occupancy. It is extraordinary that in a democracy such as we claim to have, there should exist a body of men who are completely faceless, allegedly of a quasi-military structure in terms of organisation, of completely unknown strength. If you put down a Dáil question you will be told that under no circumstances will you get any information from any Minister about them. They are free to spend public funds to get any information they want with no public accountability beyond the Minister who will not disclose to the House his actions in that regard. There exists a situation in which I have on many occasions met members of the Garda Síochána who are themselves unhappy at being policed by other policemen in a private capacity. The precise functions of this Special Branch are in no way specified by Statute in relation to this House.

I know there is a dividing line in respect of police operations between crime prevention where it is very necessary that police should not operate in the full glare of publicity generally associated with their work and their normal duties but I suggest that not only are many members of this force directly concerned with the secret prevention and detection of crime, for example in the case of drugs, but are also concerned in many respects with political activities. It is here that I tend to take issue with them. I see no reason why members of our police cannot act in confidence in full obscurity in terms of crime detection but I object to the existence of a political section within the Special Branch. I challenge the Minister to deny this exists. I take exception to the fact that when I was not a Member of the House and went on picket lines or joined demonstrations, I could recognise these gentlemen almost on a daily basis, be it either anti-apartheid demonstrations or any other political demonstration or, say, the Vietnam war. Long before it was fashionable, some of us in this House had a conscience in that matter. I, therefore, suggest that there is need for much more disclosure on the Minister's part in relation to the political activities of a particular section of the Special Branch. It is a vital, necessary and elementary aspect of public interest in respect of public discussion, that the House should be told how many men operate in the Special Branch, how they are recruited, and how they are trained. We should have some information on that matter.

It was a matter of disquiet that an RTE programme which was prepared by the staff of Seven Days on the Special Branch was suppressed without any explanation by the Minister and, indeed, without any explanation from the RTE authority. I recall when that programme was being taped some years ago, I was interviewed as a trade union officer and my views were sought on the operation of the Special Branch. The kind of questions which were put to me were: “Do you think members of the Special Branch should visit places of employment and warn employers that Johnny So-and-So is a republican agitator and should be got rid of? Is that a fair type of question for a police officer to ask in terms of the political preoccupations of a member of the public?”

I answered the questions. The answers were taped but not one of them ever appeared on the programme because the whole programme was scrapped. It was found to be not politically desirable that the work of certain persons should be discussed. I make that point although I am conscious of the need in any democratic State for what I might call public service security operations on the part of the police force. I do not think that a police force can do everything within the full glare of publicity. I have had strong reservations over the years about many of the allegations which were made, whether they were true or false. At least they were worthy of general public explanation.

There is another aspect with which it is equally difficult to come to grips. I have an open mind on this. I think we should consider the setting up of some form of independent special review body of a double kind, first of all internally in respect of discipline and, secondly, externally in respect of public complaints made against members of the Garda. It is a national scandal and it is unworthy of any democratic State that any Garda officer should be denied —as he is currently denied—an opportunity to defend himself when charges are preferred against him in the station and when he is tried, shot, hanged, drawn and quartered by his superiors. He has no opportunity of seeing the charge, seeing the basis of the charge, seeing the brief behind the charge and examining the file on that charge and putting up as good a defence as possible.

How can we possibly expect in this age, when we are supposed to live in an enlightened democratic society, members of the Garda to do their work when they are not given even such elementary protection? It is a national scandal that this kind of situation should be tolerated by the Minister. I would strongly recommend that the Minister should ensure that no garda should suffer the kind of injustice which occurred in relation to Crumlin station, for example, and that no garda should be openly reprimanded and disciplined without having an opportunity to defend himself.

I come now to the public aspect. What happens if a member of the public alleges, for the sake of argument, that he was assaulted by a members of the Garda? To whom does he complain? Who investigates the matter—the Minister, the superintendent of the area? There are questions before this House for which the Minister disclaims responsibility? I would also suggest that there is an urgent need to have a public independent special review body to which members of the community who believe themselves to be grievously wronged by members of the Garda would have access for redress.

I fully accept that there should be considerable difficulty in gaining access to this body. Otherwise we would have every crank with every kind of complaint from a parking ticket to an alleged assault, hauling members of the Garda before that body. No sane democratic society can tolerate a situation in which complaints against members of the Garda are dealt with by the force itself being its own judge and jury and arbiter. Therefore, there should be very considerable difficulty in gaining access to this body. I do not think that the members of the force would give a harsh welcome to that approach.

I regret having to delay the other Deputies who wish to come in on this debate but I want to deal with some aspects of adoption. I have had an interest in this matter for some considerable time. I want to make a special plea to the Minister to get rid of the obnoxious, discriminatory, sectarian regulation of the Adoption Board whereby it is impossible for a couple with different religions to adopt a child. They are effectively prevented from doing so. It is an absolute disgrace that this kind of regulation should exist in this country. There is need for a considerable change of attitude on the part of the Adoption Board towards this discriminatory and anomalous regulation. We need immediate reassurance from the Minister that no bar will be placed on a couple with different religions adopting a child. I accept that there are difficulties but I do not think it is a function of the State to prevent married people from adopting a child by virtue of the fact that they are practising different religions. It is not the function of the State to intervene in that kind of situation.

I want to refer the Minister to some of the very disquieting court cases which we heard about during the past year. I want to make a strong plea to the Minister to ensure that, in respect of adoption under the Children (Amendment) Act, 1957, which was incorporated in the 1964 Act, there is some elementary form of supervisory protection for children during the probationary adoption period. I am extremely concerned that notwithstanding television programmes—Seven Days again — and notwithstanding many approaches to the Minister by responsible public organisations, there has been an obdurate rejection of this approach.

I do not think it is good enough that any society should be in a position to hand out a child—to use an undesirable term—to people for adoption for a period of 12 months probation and that there should be no supervision, and I would suggest local authority supervision, of what happens to that child during the probationary period. I have no desire to interfere in any way with the parents after the probationary period but I strongly suggest to the Minister that this approach should be considered. I reject completely the ridiculous idea: "Ah, sure, the parish priest will look after the child. You need not worry. He will be in good hands." We have an obligation to every citizen and when children are being adopted we have an obligation to them. We had a tragic case in Waterford and, if this kind of supervision had been in operation, it would never have happened.

The Minister should take a look at the exceptionally good child welfare adoption protection service in Cork city. There is an extremely good system in operation there, one which is well worthy of general support.

I want to refer now to ground rents, a subject which the Minister ignored in his speech, although it is something for which he has direct responsibility. I want to refer now to the Labour Party policy on the abolition of ground rents. I know of no social, no moral, no defensible reason why there should be a continuation and a perpetuation by, for example, members of the Fianna Fáil Party or of the Fine Gael Party, of ground rents, whereby they literally get a gross income of an exploitatory kind from ground rents.

I am completely unimpressed by the idea of buying out ground rents. I am utterly unimpressed by the reasons advanced for continuing the ground rents system as contained in the report on ground rents, for instance, that it ground rents were abolished the development of building sites would become more difficult and more expensive. Did you ever hear such rubbish written into a Government report? Did you ever hear such rubbish as that the system of ground rents is a device which keeps down the initial capital cost by spreading the development costs over a longer period? Whoever wrote that about ground rents—I will be polite and will not recommend what he should do with it.

I would suggest that another reason given for the continuation of ground rents, that it is a matter of public policy to provide houses at as cheap a rate as possible—paragraph 157 of the Ground Rent Commission's Report —is not tenable. Another reason given is that the relationship of landlord and tenant enables the landlord to exert control over the user and the condition of the property. Most certainly it does, but these are all valid social reasons why ground rents should be abolished.

There is also the suggestion that in the absence of ground rents the materials and workmanship of buildings would tend to deteriorate. What an amazing deduction for an official Government report! Then there is the most amazing confession of all published under the seal of the Government, that it would be very difficult to frame legislation which would prevent the charging of ground rents— in other words, a confession of incapacity and impotence on the part of the Minister, Deputy Moran, and of those who conceived this report.

The Minister should take his courage in his hands and live up to the oft-repeated republican ideals of his party, the men of no property who went around this country allegedly abolishing landlordism, who in the 1920s and 1930s expressed abhorrence at the manipulative income measures of the former ground landlords of this country. Today what do we see? As obdurate and as emphatic a defence as one could find, because the Fianna Fáil Party is no longer the party of republicanism, no longer the party socially concerned about the operation of ground rents. In strict honesty one should also say that so inbred are ground rents in the Fine Gael Party that one could not expect that conscience would be stirred in that direction.

I would make a plea to the Minister that he should introduce legislation in respect of charitable collections. I live in a suburban constituency where housewives are at times driven quite frantic by the obnoxious approaches of fraudulent charitable collectors. I refer to those who collect for cancer relief, particularly the National Cancer Relief Fund. I appreciate that this case is sub judice and that I cannot discuss the matter, but I would urge the Minister that he would provide safeguards in relation to charitable collections and that the proliferation of charitable collectors, collecting for themselves and nobody else, would be stringently dealt with.

I have a strong complaint to make in regard to the courts, a complaint which could implicate politicians as well as the courts, namely, the excessively long vacations of the courts. I appreciate that the Fine Gael Party, in which there are morning lawyers and afternoon politicians, will not give much support to what I have to say. In America there is a situation where it takes about four years to ensure that an ordinary road accident is dealt with. If you take a libel action in America against somebody, it is unlikely to be heard during your lifetime, so bad are the legal delays in that country. However, more than anything else, more than the unifying of barristers and solicitors, more than any restructuring, there should be shorter vacations for the courts here. Thus we would have a much more effective judicial system in operation. I would also suggest that there should be a statutory time limit on the issuing of judgments. It is appalling that responsible judges, as soon as vacation approaches, will decide to adjourn a judgment, so that we might not get it until October, or if they are unduly preoccupied then, we might have to wait until after Christmas. Six or eight months can elapse, or as I remember in one case in which an action was taken against CIE by a worker in relation to trade union regulations and so on, it took something like 14 months to get a judgment made available. There should be a considerable change of attitude in that respect.

The Minister should ensure that, where censorship takes place, the reasons for the changes made are stated. There should be a common code of practice in the censorship of books, in the censorship of films, that a statement will be given as to why censorship was done.

I would equally suggest that in respect of court decisions, there should be some explanation either from the Office of the Minister for Justice or from the Attorney-General, but certainly from the responsible bodies, as to why, for example, in the middle of this year there was a flagrant withdrawal by the State of charges in the Cork case.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I would remind the Deputy——

Mr. Desmond

I realise it is out of order to discuss that case, but I certainly feel in relation to a number of instances, without specifying any of them, that there are grounds for public disquiet, and I have sympathy for members of the Garda Síochána and for the families directly concerned in such cases. Deputy Oliver Flanagan can allude to Portlaoise if he wishes, in connection with a recent case. I completely support his view in that regard. If there is a legal technicality involving an important change of decision there should devolve on district justices a duty to require an explanation as to the necessity for such a massive change of decision. I do not think such matters are totally privy to the Minister or to the Attorney-General, because there is a good deal of public disquiet in respect of these matters.

As I have spoken at undue length, I shall conclude with this point, which is a parochial one: Dún Laoghaire is a flourishing and expanding borough, the third largest in the country, and there is an urgent need for full court facilities to be made available in that area. It is a preposterous situation to find that somebody charged with an offence in Sallynoggin has to travel down to Wicklow Court to have his case heard. I am sure Deputy Andrews will agree with me. While some solicitors might not like travelling to Dún Laoghaire I do not think it would do them any harm. It would ensure that the local population would not have to travel to Kilmainham, Dundrum, Bray or down to Wicklow as at present. I was recently in the children's court and I found that young children in Killiney had to be brought to Dublin Castle for a court hearing. I would appeal to the Minister to have court facilities provided in Dún Laoghaire.

I regret I cannot, like previous Deputies, congratulate the Minister on his Estimate. It is alleged that as one grows older one becomes more circumspect in one's political opinions and I suppose this will happen to all of us, but I think there is a marked absence in the personality of the Minister in that regard. If we have similar displays of personal interest in terms of legal proceedings and the practising of his own profession, if we are to see the personal attitude that he has adopted towards the professional integrity of staffs concerned, during the next four years, then most certainly there will be grounds for grave public disquiet.

Mr. Andrews

When this Estimate came before the House last year I spoke at some considerable length on it, but it is not my intention to do so on this occasion. There are two non-fashionable areas at this particular time which give me great concern. I have been pressing these two matters rather unsuccessfully to date but I hope, from this point in time, that the position with regard to the lack of legislation relating to illegitimate children and deserted wives will be dealt with. Since my election to this House in 1965 I have brought these two matters to the attention of the Department of Justice both here and elsewhere. The Minister has, in fairness to him, replied that reciprocal legislation with Britain, in regard to deserted wives, will be coming before the House and that the amounts for maintenance orders for illegitimate children are to be increased by the district courts. I would urge the Minister to introduce this legislation as soon as possible.

As a Deputy in an urban area who has interested himself in these particular problems I have seen, and I am sure other Deputies including the Minister have seen, extreme hardship in the case of deserted wives. I do not want to be too moralistic about this sort of thing but the situation one usually meets is where a husband takes off leaving his wife and/or family. The reason for his leaving will never be known to us, but at present there is no law available to bring him back to this country to face up to his financial responsibility, if not his marital responsibility. Quite a number of women in our society are left literally holding the baby and it is about time that society discharged its obligation to them. If the husband, prior to his departure, had been working in a particular area of endeavour his wife may not even be covered by social insurance and she is then left to the tender mercy—and I mean no disrespect—of the local social assistance officer. She may get a couple of shillings to look after herself and her family but that is not good enough in this present day and age.

On the question of illegitimate children no tribute is high enough for those institutions who cater for the young women who get themselves into this difficulty. In the first instance these institutions look after the women when they have their babies and in a number of instances they continue to look after the illegitimate children. I do not think social assistance is available to these institutions because in many cases they operate as charities and depend for their finance on moneys they collect through their own efforts.

When a court makes an order against "Mr. X" the amount of money given to the unfortunate woman to maintain her children is, by present day standards, negligible. The Minister has promised legislation to update the amount given by way of maintenance orders. It is very important that these particular areas, which I believe are blots on the conscience of Christians, should not be left unattended to. I would ask the Minister to bring in legislation relating to the position of deserted wives up to date.

There is another matter of which I am sure the House is aware. It is the position of the civil list in the Four Courts. Cases in the civil list may not be heard until some time in the new year, perhaps, January, February or March. The criminal list must come first and this is right. The answer to the problem is the appointment of a judge or judges, particularly in the circuit court. It is not good enough that litigants should have to suffer long delays before their cases are heard. I would strongly urge the Minister to take the view that the position is so bad at the moment that a number of extra circuit court judges must be appointed. Correlated to that is the question of the whole courts system, particularly in the Dún Laoghaire area.

The nearest circuit courts to Dún Laoghaire are Wicklow on the one hand and the Dublin circuit court on the other. This is just not good enough. I am not calling for a full district court system in Dún Laoghaire although I would be for that, of course, but what I would like to see in Dún Laoghaire is an extra circuit court. Such a circuit court would take much of the pressure off the central Dublin circuit court. This is not a constituency matter; I am not relating it to that but I am relating it to the fullness of both the civil and criminal lists in the circuit court in Dublin. If there were an extra circuit court in Dún Laoghaire it would take a great deal of pressure off the existing position in the Dublin area.

Of course, and rightly, there was a district court called for with full jurisdiction. It is not right that this is not available to a population of the size of Dún Laoghaire and its environs. People have to go from the areas that have been mentioned—Glenageary and Sallynoggin—to Bray on the one hand and to Kilmainham on the other hand, to the Four Courts and to Dundrum. This is not good enough. The application of justice should be available as near as possible to such a vast population. The people should not be asked to travel such distances to have their cases heard. The Minister has in his Department details from Dublin Corporation in relation to a district court and a circuit court for the area and he should possibly examine the various proposals that have been made to him by Dún Laoghaire Corporation with, of course, the full backing of the local population. That is not to say that the Dún Laoghaire area is full of criminals. On the contrary, the idea is that they should have available to them handy access to the courts if they do indulge in civil litigation. This is what it is all about. There is really a case to be made for an extra circuit court and a district court with full jurisdiction in Dún Laoghaire itself. I do not take the view that Dún Laoghaire has blossomed as it should. It would give it added status if it had this sort of legal apparatus operating in the area.

On the question of the Garda, the Minister has stated that the Conroy Commission is to report very shortly. This is a very welcome development. We look forward to the findings of the commission. As the Minister has said, it would not be proper for him to comment at this stage on the many questions affecting the welfare and responsibilities of members of the force. We look forward to his comments when he has studied the report of the commission and to the action that he will take in relation to the proposals coming from the commission.

The gardaí are one of the most respected groups of people in the community. I cannot speak highly enough of those members of the Garda in my own constituency. Apart from their duties as members of the force, in many instances they involve themselves in local youth clubs and in the rehabilitation of young and not so young offenders. These are some of the many extra duties which gardaí take upon themselves and which do not receive sufficient publicity. When gardaí get involved in some fracas we hear bad things about them but there are many good points about them which it is only fair to bring to the attention of the House. I can say in relation to the gardaí in my area that they are a most respected body. One could cavil at some of the conditions under which they live. Gardaí have the same status as every other human being. This should be recognised. They should not be asked to live in dreary rundown Garda stations. I mentioned last week on another Estimate the condition of a number of Garda stations in the constituency of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. I referred specifically to the Blackrock, Deansgrange, Cabinteely and Shankill Garda stations. The Shankill Garda station is a traffic hazard, as I pointed out. It is an old, out-of-date station on the side of a very dangerous road; there are no parking facilities available. The interior condition of the station leaves a lot to be desired. It is not fair that people should be asked to operate in these conditions. Psychologists tell us the type of conditions that human beings should operate in. Gardaí are also human beings and should be given proper conditions. The Minister has done a lot of good work in relation to the rationalisation of Garda stations. This sort of development is welcome.

The Minister also mentioned the opening in Shanganagh of a semi-open institution for the accommodation of suitable first offenders and selected long-term inmates in the 16-21 age group who show promise of improvement and of responding to guidance. As one who has a fair idea of the good work done by the staff in this institution I can say it is a success and the Minister must take a great deal of credit for the establishment of this institution. It is the sort of thing that was needed in the social structure in which we live.

The Minister also referred to the fact that he had introduced at Shanganagh a system of pre-discharge leave for well-behaved inmates serving long sentences and said that this leave is granted to selected youths where it appears that they will use the short period of leave to make contacts with employers, to renew home ties or to accustom themselves gradually to normal life. That is a very fair and proper approach in relation to the rehabilitation of this type of offender. Even if five out of ten rehabilitated themselves, it would be a tremendous achievement.

This brings me to the question of the position of criminals who come out from jail and who are to be rehabilitated. We have in Dublin city and county a number of very fair employers who not only give criminals the opportunity of rehabilitating themselves but help to look after the wives and children during a period of rehabilitation. I know a number of such employers myself. I have had personal experience of one man who went to work for a builder during his day release and a great deal of credit is due to that builder. A great deal of credit is due to any employer in these circumstances. Those who come out of jail should be looked on as human beings entitled to the same dignity and respect as other human beings. They have expurged their debt to society and, if they are not treated properly by society, they will revert to crime; and, if they do, who is to blame? The society which rejects them. The social approach to which I have already referred in the case of the builder is the sort of approach I would ask all employers to adopt. There are quite a number who do so already. It is help these people want, not condemnation. I strongly recommend the right social approach.

We had a long lecture on the rights and wrongs of the solicitors' and barristers' professions from Deputy Desmond. It gives me quite a pain, with great respect, to hear people talking about an area, an area about which they know very little. They may have had one or two bad experiences. Far be it from me, as a practising barrister, to come in here and condemn the operations of the trade unions. I have a great respect for trade unions but I am not as well versed in the operations of trade unions as Deputy Desmond is: equally, he is not as well versed in the operations of the legal profession as I am. I object to the attitude he takes up when he talks about well-heeled barristers. He does not talk about well-heeled executive trade unionists. He does not talk about the situation in which you have one trade union fighting against another. I do not want to be construed as being in any way anti-trade union.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

What have trade unions got to do with this Estimate?

Mr. Andrews

I am drawing an analogy. We have someone who knows nothing about my profession attacking it. I am doing anything but attacking his profession. What I suggest is that he should learn more about the legal profession before he comes in here and makes biased remarks about it.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

As a Deputy he has the right to do that.

Mr. Andrews

I do not deny him the right to speak but he must respect my right now to answer him. We want to be very careful about this. I would not deny anyone the right to say what he wants to say. On the contrary; at the same time I would like those who demand that right for themselves to recognise the right for others. It is a great help to be properly informed. We, on this side of the House, do not take up attitudes like the attitudes taken up by certain members of the Labour Party on this Estimate. When they speak about the legal profession they should know something more about it before they are as critical as they have been. We never hear about the barristers who spend 30 days—at least, that was the case in one particular instance—who never got a red cent for the work they did because it was on a "No foal, no fee" basis. Barristers have wives and families; they have the same obligations as trade unionists and others. We should be very wary of the kind of criticism we make about one another. There are many barristers who may not be so well-heeled at all. These are sensitive areas and no Deputy should sit in judgment. I have no desire to talk about well-heeled executive trade unionists.

Deputy Desmond described certain practices in relation to the legal profession as feudal practices. He should examine his own conscience. He said "as far as we are concerned". Who are "we"?

The Minister has made certain suggestions, with some of which I agree and with some of which I do not agree, but the matters concerned will come up again on another occasion.

The Adoption Act of 1952 is recognised by European legislators as one of the best pieces of legislation in the context of social justice. There is one particular section of the Act to which I take exception. Deputy Desmond referred to it. The provision which prohibits parents of different religions adopting a child should be repealed. We are living in an age of ecumenism and this provision is not consistent with ecumenism. Indeed, I have heard some clergy speak very emphatically in favour of the abolition of this sectarian provision. The Act has brought much happiness into the lives of many and it does not seem right that married couples of different faiths should be denied such happiness. The Minister probably knows more about this than I do, but I am sure he agrees with me.

I have heard many complaints about these so-called charitable collections. It seems wrong that a person can collect £4,000 or £5,000 and hand over a couple of hundred only to the charity he alleges he is collecting for; that is not good enough. The whole question of charity and charitable collections should be brought into proper focus. It is disgraceful that these people— non-nationals in the main—should be allowed to go around as predators on the community. They operate allegedly in the cause of charity but do not make a realistic return to the charity they are supposed to represent. The Minister should have this whole question examined.

I urge the Minister as a matter of great urgency to examine the whole context of the circuit court. We are all familiar with the old adage that "justice is sweetest when freshest" but as far as the facilities in the circuit courts are concerned, they are pretty stale. I would also ask the Minister to urgently consider the position in relation to deserted wives and illegitimate children. I know the Minister has promised legislation to deal with cases of this type. I respect that promise and I look forward to its fulfilment because I would consider the Minister as having justified his time in Dáil Éireann if this legislation is brought in.

With regard to road traffic accidents, the Minister has mentioned a new system of reporting and recording information which he says was introduced on 1st January, 1968. In 40 or 50 years' time if people look at the figures for the number of people killed on the roads over, say, a ten-year period, I should imagine that the number will more than compare with the number of people who died of famine in the middle of the last century. It is a tragedy that so many accidents and deaths on the roads are caused by the misuse of the motor car. It could be said that, while people died of hunger in the middle of the 19th century, they are dying because of careless driving in the middle of the 20th century. The Minister is not directly responsible for the breathalyser but its introduction has put a lot of people on notice that they should not drive after consuming a large quantity of alcohol. This might help to reduce the number of traffic accidents.

Traffic wardens have been mentioned. These men, in the main, are doing a good job. However, I shall relate an experience I had with them on one occasion when my car broke down. I was forced to leave the car overnight in what was a non-parking area. When I returned to collect the car next morning at about ten o'clock I found that a parking ticket had been placed on it. I tried to tell the traffic warden that my car had broken down but he would not even listen. Admittedly, notices are placed on cars while the motorist is away, but I think the courts would be saved a lot of difficulty and the Garda would be saved a lot of paperwork if reasonable pleas were listened to by these men. However, as I have said, they are doing a reasonably good job. There are 120 of them operating in Cork and Dublin.

Before I conclude I want to refer to the paraplegic driver whose needs I have been making known in this House whenever opportunity arose. I am not in any way complaining about the Garda in relation to the application of the law in their case because they have been very decent to them. Through the Department, the Minister should ask the Garda to issue a plate of some nature to the paraplegic driver indicating that he is a disabled driver so that such person will be allowed to park, within reason, in a non-parking area. If the Minister could do this, so much the better. A number of years ago a paraplegic driver was prosecuted for parking, but, thank God, the Garda have seen the light and the justice who tried that case threw it out, and rightly so. The Garda have taken a proper attitude in this connection in recent times. It would help both the gardai and the traffic wardens if they knew that the disabled driver, the paraplegic, had left his car to do some shopping. The paraplegic would not have to suffer the £1 fine which they must suffer if they park in a non-parking area.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Deputy Sweetman has very considerable parliamentary and governmental experience and he has said that the Minister for Justice is the most important member of the Government after the Taoiseach. This may well be right. It is certain that the Minister for Justice has great and unusual power and influence. He has powers, for example, to tap anyone's telephone in this country. The power—I quote from the Official Report of the Dáil Debates in answer to a question—"to intercept telephone conversation is exercised under the hand and seal of the Minister for Justice and such warrants are issued only for security purposes or for the prevention and detection of serious crime." That reference to "security purposes" is obviously important. We do not know how this power may, in fact, be exercised. We do not know how "security purposes" is interpreted. Therefore, it becomes very important for us to know what kind of man is making these judgments. It is very easy, for example, for a person in power, very much identified with a political party, to identify the security of the nation with the survival and prosperity of that party. Such a temptation is there. Neither Deputies nor anyone else in the country can know for certain that these powers will not be used in that way—particularly when we know that the party in power has a most exalted conception of its own function in relation to the history of this nation. The Taoiseach referred to that party, for example, as the party of national reunification—the party of national reunification: there is not any other.

Might a Minister not think that it was in the interests of national security that a person who represented a threat to this vitally important party should have his telephone tapped? It might be that a certain type of man might appreciate matters in that way and might reach that conclusion. Therefore, it does become very important for us to consider very carefully whether a given Minister for Justice is likely to react in that way or whether he is likely to react in terms of a wider responsibility to the whole nation, not only to members of his party but also to people outside that description altogether and to people with whom he may find himself in very little sympathy.

The Minister for Justice also, it is, who tends to set the tone for the Garda. We have seen in various areas in the United States in recent times that it is important what kind of tone is set for the police. A certain kind of person responsible for police, who likes to be throught of as a tough man, as in the case of Mayor Daley, Mayor of Chicago, can incite the police to conduct which has been stigmatised by an American national commission in very strong terms, whereas a person more sensitive to the rights of the citizen, like other American mayors I could name, has ensured a better tone in the force.

Many tributes have been paid here to the Garda. I believe that these tributes, by and large, are very well founded. I think we have an excellent police force. Deputies from all sides of the House have said that. I think it is true. I also think we all want to keep it that way, that it is very important to keep it that way and that the person who sets the tone for the force has the responsibility for doing that.

I think there does exist in the Garda force at present considerable disquiet. I think there is great social unrest, in particular in our cities. I think that the gardaí are likely to find themselves, and do find themselves already, under considerable strain; that they are, in relation to their responsibilities, and underpaid force and that they are otherwise suffering from conditions which ought to be remedied. Other Deputies have stressed that and I concur in that.

At the moment, I wish to concentrate on what seems to me the most important aspect of this Estimate for the Office of the Minister for Justice and that is the question of the Minister himself in relation to the duties of his office. It seems to me, as it has seemed to many Deputies here—I think there is considerable agreement among many Members of this House on this—that it is particularly important that the personality of the individual who wields these powers in relation, for example, to telephone tapping and to the Special Branch—which cannot effectively be questioned on these issues here—should be such that all this power and influence may safely and without question be entrusted to him. One may ask, regarding a person who has such powers—and powers which cannot be questioned—the following questions. Does he seem to be, to those who have a chance of observing him, as a person and as a Minister, scrupulously respectful of the rights of others? Does he exercise consideration in his social relations and propriety in his language? These are of interest, I think, in relation to any public representative but more so in relation to a Minister whose conduct in certain areas of his administration cannot be questioned than they are in relation, say, to the ordinary back-bencher where a certain amount of allowance may be made for other qualities. One may ask if any Minister for Justice is a person of that type or if he is perhaps, on the other hand, a rather choleric, truculent, overbearing person, given to coarse vituperation and ill-tempered and aggressive criticism. Those two types do not, of course, exhaust all the possibilities but they do indicate certain characters of men who might possibly be Ministers for Justice. I think, with a man of the first type, we would all be reasonably happy in relation to power exercised under national security on which he cannot answer questions. We would say, from all sides of the House: "That is a man whom I would trust to hold these powers", though one may be anxious regarding the very existence of these powers. But one may say one would trust certain types of people but not trust other types of people in relation to such powers.

Edmund Burke, and Irish political philosopher of great wisdom, said that the power of bad men is no indifferent thing. With these considerations in mind, I embarked on a scrutiny of the question whether the present Minister for Justice is nearer to the first or the second of the types I have sketched— the first being a type who might be entrusted with certain powers and the second being a type who could not safely, on any reasonable psychological estimate of probability, be entrusted with functions about which he cannot be questioned and on which he must be trusted. In considering that, I looked first at his reported statements. I looked at the statements attributed to the Minister in the public press. It must be said that many of these statements contained rather rude and uncouth remarks which would be unacceptable in any Member of the House—pardonable perhaps in a back-bencher in the heat of an election campaign but surprising and distasteful coming from a Minister. However, any man may be misjudged. I found myself willing to suspend judgment of these alleged remarks of the Minister which appear in the press from time to time. I decided to allow for the possibility that the Minister was systematically misreported and misrepresented and was, in fact, a singularly unfortunate man in the way he was reported. I decided, therefore, it must rather be in the Official Report that one should look for authentic and unquestionable evidence of what kind of man the present Minister for Justice is and whether he should have from us this kind of confidence. I then, therefore, with some diligence, have been reading in the Official Report in quest of what one might call the authentic Deputy Michael Moran, one concerning whom the record may not be questioned, as the Minister himself has a chance of examining the record and correcting it if it is wrong. I found, in the course of the perusal of the debates, some interesting things.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 26th November, 1969.

Dáil Éireann debate - Tuesday, 25 Nov 1969

Committee on Finance. - Vote 20—Office of the Minister for Justice (Resumed).

Mr. Browne

Mr. J. Lenehan

Mr. J. Lenehan

Mr. J. Lenehan

Mr. J. Lenehan

Mr. J. Lenehan

Mr. J. Lenehan

Mr. J. Lenehan

Mr. J. Lenehan

Mr. J. Lenehan

Mr. J. Lenehan

Mr. J. Lenehan

Mr. J. Lenehan

Mr. J. Lenehan

Mr. J. Lenehan

Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 25 Nov 1969