It was interesting to hear Deputy Burke. I am sure that for men in their sixties there was a sense of déjá vu about his speech and the proceedings here this morning and yesterday. The Deputy correctly indicated that the Minister has a difficult task and deserves our full support. Deputy Burke was oblique in his reference to the task facing the Minister, but I take it that what he meant were the elements of subversion showing themselves in our country at the moment. His speech, in which he urged the Minister to be firm with these people and called for the support of all right thinking, democratically-minded people, was a speech which might have been made by any Cumann na nGaedheal Deputy in the 1920s. It is a pity Deputy Burke did not draw the full analogy with those times. However, it is heartening to see such a change on the other side and to hear such a speech being made. I hope for the Minister's sake, and for the policy the Minister has indicated he wants to adopt, that Deputy Burke will be followed by many other speakers from that side of the House on the same theme.
I do not know if that will happen because Deputy Burke made one statement which struck me so forcibly that I wrote down his words. He said: "I have been told I should not open my mouth on certain things in this House." That is an extraordinary statement for a Government Deputy to make. Deputy Burke made that statement in the context to which I have been referring—the context of urging the House to support the Minister in his difficult task of dealing with the subversive elements in our society. It would be interesting to learn from Deputy Burke who told him that he should stay silent and their reasons why any Deputy should stay silent. Perhaps he was giving voice to the feelings or gossip in the Fianna Fáil Party. I should like to think that his views represent the general feelings within his party but in view of his statement that he should not open his mouth on certain things I must have doubts about that. To some extent all of us are formed by our origins and this might explain why some people on the other side cannot consider themselves free to come out and speak unequivocally in support of their Minister. With a few exceptions from the Government members themselves, their silence has been noticeable.
I would take issue with the Minister in his speech in regard to the problem of dealing with the subversive elements in our society. Without any doubt this is the major problem facing the Minister for Justice. One would have expected him to spell out the problem and how it is proposed to solve it. He skates over the problem. He denies that there has been any ambivalence on the part of the Government with regard to these illegal organisations. He concedes that there has not been much action in relation to them. He suggests that the reason for that is that the law as it stands at present is defective. He says that we as a community may have to accept the need for substantial changes either in the criminal law of this country or in the judicial machinery for the investigation and trial of certain offences.
I concede that we who have a common law system here can be in difficulty in proving certain types of offences, but I do not concede that, as matters stand, the law has shown itself to be inadequate, or the machinery has shown itself to be ineffective in dealing with these people, and in dealing with the offences to be considered in this context. One has to rely on the impression one gets from the newspaper reports of legal proceedings and I readily concede that they can be inaccurate. As a member of the public it is the only way I can judge what is happening in regard to the prosecution of these offences. It seems to me that the charges and offences which have been prosecuted to date have been stale. People have been charged for statements made nine months or even 12 months ago. I very definitely get the feeling that, in bringing these charges, the Government are merely indulging in shadow boxing to try to reassure people in Great Britain or in Northern Ireland.
I have sufficient faith and confidence in the professional efficiency of our Garda and detective forces to feel that if from the beginning they had an entirely free hand in relation to these activities, many successful prosecutions could have been brought. Until such time as we can see an unequivocal approach, an unambivalent approach to these matters, we must have doubts as to whether Fianna Fáil are still to some extent a prisoner of their origins in relation to these activities.
Last December I asked the Minister a question about illegal training camps conducted by these subversive organisations and in the course of his reply he said:
I have at no time sought to deny that this kind of training activity does go on to some extent in the manner described, that is to say, indoors.
This is a small country. In a small intimate society there are very few activities which can go on to any considerable extent without society knowing about them. I have the height of admiration for the professional efficiency for our police and detective forces and I have no doubt that they would be able to put the finger on these illegal activities.
In spite of what the Minister said in his speech I consider that the attitude of himself and his Government has not been as thorough as it should be, and has been equivocal in relation to enforcing the law. It is no answer to say that the legal machinery may have to be changed, or that the judicial system may have to be revised. It has not been fully tried out and found wanting. It is not enough to come in here and, if you like, indicate a distasteful alternative to this House for the Minister's failure to prosecute these people successfully and vigorously. The House must be shown clearly, and must be able to see clearly, that the present machinery is, in fact, defective. I do not believe it is, because I do not think it has been brought into full operation against these people.
As I say, some of the reasons for this are historic. We do not want to open old sores by dealing with them but we cannot ignore them. To some extent we are all formed by our origins. It was unfortunate that the Taoiseach allowed himself to be photographed on Easter Sunday last inspecting a guard of honour of civilians in semi-military costumes and carrying rifles. To a Northerner, who would not be aware of the tribal rites of the Fianna Fáil Party, this could be a very disturbing sight: the Taoiseach down here inspecting what to all intents and purposes was a civilian army. The people up there equate civilian armies with illegal organisations. This is a delicate time and that should not have happened. The Taoiseach should not have allowed himself to be in that position.
It would be interesting to hear from the Minister the legal basis on which these people were allowed to form themselves into military ranks at Arbour Hill and to wear semi-military costume. Who provided them with the rifles? Who provided them with the webbing belts they wore? They were not members of the Old IRA because from the photographs they were obviously too young to have been in that body. It would be interesting for the Minister to let us know how that situation was legal or how it could be justified in the present climate. It is symptomatic of the sentiment or the philosophy to be found in the Minister's party. These very sentiments and philosophies inhibit him and have inhibited the Government up to now in dealing effectively with illegal organisations.
I read, too, last week in one of the daily papers—I think it was The Irish Independent—an article on a gentleman called Mac Stiofáin which indicated that he is employed by Connradh na Gaeilge as an organiser. At the moment he is on full time leave with full pay. This is a body which is subsidised heavily by this House and it can allow one of its employees full time leave with full pay to engage in his activities. He is described as chief of staff of what I would call the woman beaters, the provisional IRA. Again, the fact that our Government will tolerate this is indicative of their philosophy and indicative of the approach, the softly softly approach, which they have towards these people. They seem to be always looking over their shoulder in some fear that, if they take action against these groups, which are subversive and which have threatened this democracy, they are not being true to themselves and they are in some way being anti-national.
This is a fallacious of course. It has proved to be a fallacy in the past, and what is wanted now is firm action. It was very encouraging to hear support for the Minister from his own backbenchers in the person of Deputy Burke. I would hope that, in the course of this debate, many more Deputies from the Minister's party will rise here and encourage him to take firm and positive action in dealing with these subversive organisations. In the whole political scene in this country the activities of these organisations are the outstanding feature. How to deal with them, I concede, is a matter that must cause the Government of the day some difficulty because it is distasteful to have to deal firmly with some people who are idealists, albeit misguided. Because they are misguided, and because they are so misguided that they are a danger to this State and all its democratic institutions, they have to be dealt with and regrettably dealt with firmly.
History has shown this. I suggest to the Minister that he should take a lesson from the history of our young State and recognise that these people, these organisations, have to be dealt with firmly. They cannot be allowed to threaten what was bought at such a high price. We have seen in many of their activities fascist and totalitarian manifestations. On no score can there be any justification for tolerating them. There can be no sympathy whatever for their activities. They are essentially anti-national no matter how much they may preach the doctrine of rigid sectarian nationalism. They are anti-national in the sense that they would destroy all that we have achieved here. They are fascist in the sense that they are prepared to administer punishment to people who deviate from their line of thought. They are totalitarian in the sense that they do not give a place to opposing voices. They are entirely bad and evil and it is the Government's duty to be very firm in ensuring that their voice does not become louder or their activities widespread. This can only be done by taking firm action. The present legal system, the code of law, the judicial machinery and court procedure are, in my submission, quite adequate for this purpose if the Minister and the Executive have the will.
This was the most important part of the Minister's speech and I regret that it was too vague on that point to reassure the many people worried about the present situation. I do not know whether the Minister was flying a kite or not when he spoke about changing the present law. It would have behoved him as Minister for Justice to have indicated specifically the way in which the present law is defective and to have indicated also here, which is the proper place and time for doing so, the ways in which he thinks the law should be or needs to be amended. We were left with a rather vague threat that our present legal system may have to be upset in order to curb these people. This was not necessary before and I suggest it is not necessary now or, if the Minister thinks it is, it is his duty to spell out why and how these changes must be made. If the law cannot be enforced successfully or effectively and if one considers that the law, in effect, is the will of the people then, in effect, a minority is trying to impose something on a majority. That is not the situation here.
The Minister knows as well as I do that there is no public sympathy or support for these subversives. Consequently, he should recognise that the consensus of the people is in favour of the present institutions and present system of democracy and they have no desire to have it changed and that the consensus is behind the Minister in enforcing the present system.
The Minister indicated the activities of his Department in the field of law reform and the work that had been done so far. I must commend him and the Department for the advances made in this field. He indicated that the present system of dealing with malicious injuries was being looked at. I do not know what is in mind there but in case there is any drive to repeal or revoke the present criminal injury code I should like to make these comments to the Minister giving some reasons why I think it should be retained. The outcry for its revision or repeal invariably arises when one particular area is faced with an unusually high bill because of some act of outrage committed in that area and the fact that all the people of that area have to pay for something in which they had no act or part and did not support is manifestly unjust. If the bill which is spread over all the people is high, there is no doubt the present system in that situation does require reform. The criminal injury code with its system of levying damages on that entire community was intended to punish the community for acts by certain wrongdoers within that community who could not be made amenable to the law because, in effect, they were being protected by the community and there was a certain amount of justification for the code when looked at in that light. But if the acts of outrage or damage are committed by persons who are strangers to the community and are not supported by the community the original argument falls down and the law requires revision. In certain cases the damage will have to be met from central funds or from some source other than the particular community when that community as a whole is innocent. I speak particularly of political outrages which we know do not have the support of the community by and large and for which, therefore, it cannot be held responsible.
There is another type of malicious damage, the lesser type, windows being broken and occasional acts of arson and so on. I suggest the present law in relation to compensation for items like that should not be changed because, in effect, it is a very cheap form of insurance. When the ordinary run of malicious injury claim is spread over the rated occupiers of an entire county or a large urban or corporation area the impact on any individual is not severe and it is a guarantee for the entire community that damage suffered in this way will be paid for. The alternative is to remove this system and people are then driven to effect private insurance and I think the rates of premiums individuals would have to pay would be far higher than the sums they are now called on to pay from time to time to meet ordinary run of the mill claims.
There is also a possibility that if people are at the mercy of private insurance companies they might not be able to obtain effective cover against this type of damage. It is a risk that companies might not be able to assess and consequently they might have to refuse cover or charge unduly high premiums to cover unassessable risks. It would be a pity to see any change in the criminal injury code which would remove that protection. Again, if the Minister has changes in mind I suggest these should be made public as early as possible so that they could be debated by local authorities and the public generally. If changes are to be made they could then be made by the Minister in a situation where prior to making the changes the Minister had obtained the public view and he could then say that he was introducing legislation which would be noncontroversial and would meet public demand.
The Minister dealt with one very important aspect of his Department in a very cursory manner, the activities of the Adoption Board. He simply gave the number of orders made in 1971 and that was his contribution to this emotional, difficult and delicate field. The Minister and I took issue some time ago on the philosophy behind our adoption law when I asked him in a Dáil question last May if he had any proposals to make to amend the adoption laws and if he had received any criticism of them. He assumed the criticism I wanted to make was that the rights of mothers should be reduced. Essentially, that is the criticism I want to make and to that extent I take issue with the Minister because he indicated in his reply that he would not consider any such change. It is not so much that I want to see the rights of the mothers reduced but I want to see the rights of the children increased. At present our adoption laws are mother-centred. The leaning in the adoption laws is in favour of the mother.
The child is regarded as a chattel of the mother and is to be placed or not placed as the mother decides. As a starting point we must admit that the mother owns the child and that there is a tremendous psychological bond between mother and infant which can be increased considerably by the circumstances of an illegitimate birth. Having recognised that, we must consider the future of the child and the future of the mother. Society, as it is at present, condemns both mother and child as sinners. To some extent the illegitimate child is becoming less of an outcast in our society. Nevertheless, the illegitimate teenager or young adult living with his or her unmarried mother is an outcast to some extent in the community in which they live. If "outcast" is too strong a word I would say that they are objects of notice, that they do not merge into the community in the same way as the other families in that community. It is humiliating, hurtful and wrong for any human being to be put in that position. Very often an illegitimate child is put in that position because at a time when he or she could have been adopted, the mother, for sentimental reasons, perfectly natural human reasons, did not want to part with the child.
I would suggest that where a mother makes a decision to part with her child and allows him or her to be adopted provisionally but who then changes her mind, the change is essentially selfish on her part. At that stage her life is, to all intents and purposes, half over and her future is not important in comparison to the future of the child. Our society should ensure that its adoption laws are based on consideration of the child's future rather than the mother's and should be based on devising a system whereby if the mother agrees to have her child adopted and given the security of belonging to a family, she should not be allowed change her mind. This may be harsh in relation to the emotions of a mother where a newly born baby is concerned but that harshness has to be counterbalanced against the life-long injustice that could be inflicted on the child by allowing a mother to change her mind. Our adoption laws at present allow for too much prevarication by mothers. The whole point of the adoption laws is not to provide children for childless marriages but to provide homes and families for children and to be able to take children out of the position of having the stigma of illegitimacy attached to them for their entire lives. Having regard to the amount of personal hurt and embarrassment that a person can suffer all through his life, the law should be changed so that a mother who is unduly possessive regarding her illegitimate child cannot change her mind once she decides to let the child be adopted.
Society is changing but it will be a considerable time yet before people in this category will be accepted entirely and without question, without embarrassment and without any feeling of difference. This is one aspect of the adoption laws that deserves consideration and I would ask the Minister to give it his attention.
Another aspect that will have to be considered, particularly in the context of the present climate in this country, is the prohibition on adoption in cases of mixed marriages. At present the adoptive parents must be of the same religion so that persons who are of different religions and who are childless cannot make their homes available to an illegitimate or a homeless child. This is wrong and it shows an attitude of mind on the part of the State that is not taking into account the changes that are taking place in our society. It shows an undue interference by the State in matters of private religion which, again, is something that will leave people in Northern Ireland somewhat chary of our society. It is not an urgent problem in the sense that there is not a surplus of children who cannot be adopted because of the regulation. There are more prospective adoptive parents than there are children for adoption and consequently it can be arranged that the adoptive parents are always of the same religion. Nevertheless, the principle is wrong and should be changed. Parents of different religions who are suitable and capable of adopting a child should be allowed to do so if they so wish.
One other point about adoption is the nature of the annual report. The only report I have is as old as 1969. This was not published until some time after the year in which the report ended. There has been criticism of the size of the report in that it is much too skimpy and gives no details of the problems of adoption or of changes that the board considered to be needed.
So far as I recall, the first page stated the regulations under the Acts, the second stated the number of adoptions that were made, while the third and fourth pages gave a list of registered adoption societies. For a board who are doing such tremendously important work one would expect much more comment on the sociological aspects of that work. One startling omission was that there were X number of applications received but only Y number of adoption orders made. We are entitled to know the reasons why no orders were made in some cases. Was it because of a change of mind on the part of mothers or were there some legal obstacles to making the orders? To enable us assess the work of the Adoption Board all information of this nature should be contained in the annual report.
From information that reaches me I am aware that many adoptions are arranged through persons or bodies who are not registered adoption societies. This is illegal under the Act but there have been no prosecutions. Very often these people who interfere are clerical people. They are well-meaning but the making of adoptions is a matter for skilled social workers. It is a matter for the Adoption Board. The board should refuse to tolerate unauthorised or illegal adoptions arranged by well-meaning clerical persons. The Act is specific on this point and it should be enforced. This is not an area for well-meaning amateurs.
I was glad to see a reference in the Minister's speech to the appointment of welfare officers. The title "welfare officers" is somewhat misleading to people who may not be aware of what these people do. They are probation officers attached to the courts. It was a serious gap in our social system that up to now these officers were available only to a limited extent in Dublin. They have been appointed now to several provincial centres, one of these being Athlone. I can tell the Minister that the public and those involved in the administration of law in that area are grateful to him for the appointment that was made there and we assure him that the amount of good that has been done already by this officer is enormous.
We look forward to this service being expanded. We look forward to a position where the training that is being given to these officers can become more detailed and where existing officers can be released for postgraduate training, so to speak. At the moment because of the urgent need to get them to work, training periods have been short. This does not seem to have diminished their efficiency, so far as an outsider can judge, but nevertheless, the training and expertise which these men can get before they take up duty must increase their efficiency. We would all rather have them with short training than not have them at all. It is an aspect of sociology under the control of the Minister which needs to be expanded urgently.
The Minister gave rather frightening figures for the increase in crime and quoted also the vast increase in the number of persons in custody. One of the most powerful weapons in trying to reverse this trend must be to have a full corps of welfare officers attached to all court areas in the country. There are many young adults and juveniles who could be deviated from the habit of crime if they came under the supervision of skilled and trained persons at a sufficiently early date. Many of the persons in our prisons arrived there casually. Their criminal habits were formed casually and as a result they slid down the social scale to a stage where they did not care and just committed crimes. If they had been contacted by a welfare officer at an early stage many of them would have been reformed. The social welfare officer's knowledge of family and domestic background should be available to the courts. Different action could then be taken in relation to many offenders.
The main factor in diminishing crime or in preventing a recurrence of crime with that type of teenager or young adult offender is to be able to provide work. I have not the slightest doubt, as a person who practises in district courts and who does a considerable amount of work for persons charged with petty criminal offences, that very often the motive behind these offences is that the offender was affected by the affluence he saw around him while he was an unemployed person with no money. He was tempted to steal to provide himself with the good things of life which he saw in the hands of other persons. I know some of these young people who drifted on to continued crime. Others were lucky and got employment at a critical time in their careers. The employment provided them with an income and as long as they had a steady income and felt as good as anyone else in society the temptation to continue a life of crime was removed and they became good citizens.
It is important that welfare officers should have the confidence of all employers, whether State, semi-State or otherwise and that applications for jobs for persons under their care should be considered favourably and that the young people concerned should in some cases even get priority. I would endorse Deputy P. J. Burke's appeal to employers not to be prejudiced against a young person because he had been guilty of an offence at an earlier stage or had served time in a reformatory.
I welcome the move by the Department to appoint welfare officers to the courts. I would like to see the number of officers increased immediately. With the growing incidence of crime this would provide one of the main weapons in fighting it. I would like to see them provided, especially in country towns, so that the increased crime rate could be held in check before it increases further. In modern society, with the lack of respect by many in that particular age group for the institutions of society, we need welfare officers to help the young people to correct their drift in the wrong direction.
Coupled with that, it is good to see in the Minister's speech details of the advances which have been made in our penal system. There have been improvements in buildings and in after-care service. The purchase of the premises in Blacklion, County Cavan, is an interesting experiment, but is that place well situated? There is a fine building there, situated in beautiful countryside, but it is in a very remote place and in an area which is not well served by transport. Part of the rehabilitation of the persons there would be to ensure that their parents, relatives and friends could keep in touch with them regularly. The good of having this fine modern premises in beautiful surroundings could be undone to some extent if a boy there felt completely cut-off from his folk. This is something which a generous scale of travel allowances and a rearrangement of the bus services could overcome. I would warn the Minister to be careful about providing special bus services to the jail because the people travelling on such a service would be immediately labelled. This is a problem which must be dealt with sensitively in order to overcome the difficulties of the centre's remoteness and to ensure that the travelling facilities available to the parents and relatives of the boys are adequate. The general idea of providing these premises is a good one. The numbers of suitable premises available are naturally limited. The Department did not have much choice as to where this centre should be. The alternative was to build, which is costly and slow.
I would like to refer to the composition and the work of visiting committees. How effective are such committees? The Minister paid tribute to them. The only informattion I have comes from the other side of the fence, as it were. It comes from members of the NFA who spent a term in Mountjoy Jail. I discussed conditions with them. Mountjoy Jail is not a holiday centre or anything like that. Discipline is severe. This is as it must necessarily be in a prison. The point was made that the visiting committees did not have the confidence of the prisoners and that while they were well-intentioned and the persons in them were apparently sympathetic they were identified by the prisoners with the establishment. These visiting committees should be identified by the prisoners as being neutral, and as being composed of persons to whom grievances could be put in the expectation that their points would be earnestly listened to and that if substance was found in them they would be remedied. This is not the position from the point of view of the prisoners in relation to the visiting committees at present. The philosophy behind visiting committees is that they should be there as buffers between the establishment and the prisoners. Visiting committees are not fulfilling that role at present, from the point of view of the prisoners. The structure and activities of these committees might be examined with a view to seeing whether the difficulty which I submit exists could be overcome.
The Minister in his speech referred, in the section dealing with law reform, to the introduction of the new Courts Bill. This is welcome because it increases the jurisdiction realistically. The Minister has not yet provided a new costs structure to go with the increased jurisdiction. This is a serious omission. I have no doubt that the good sense of justices and judges will overcome this but it would be more satisfactory for the public and practitioners if these costs were arranged at this stage.
The Minister mentioned the good work of the various committees on court procedure and the reports that have been received from them. He mentioned in particular the question of juries and the changes proposed. He did not outline the changes, but these changes are so drastic and so fundamental to our legal system that I am disappointed that he did not deal with them so that the public would be informed of the changes proposed and the arguments for and against. I personally am very conservative in relation to this matter and I want to be convinced that the changes are necessary. I am conservative because my experience of juries has been on the side of accused persons coming before them, and, perhaps, the direction of my thinking has been overmuch in favour of the freedom of the individual. I do not know can one go too much in that direction. We have to balance the rights of the community against the individual's freedom; nevertheless, my experience has been on his side and, perhaps, it tends to give me a viewpoint that is excessively conservative in relation to retaining the present jury system.
However, being a matter that is fundamental to our whole legal structure, it is one that deserves full debate. The Minister should make known in as wide as possible a manner the views of the committee on this question, so that when this controversial legislation comes to be introduced we who will have to deal with it here will be aware of public feeling on the subject. This will be of assistance to us, and I think it is good for laws that they should have been well discussed in advance by the public generally and that interested parties would have an opportunity of making their views known.
The Minister dealt with the backlog in the courts and stated that the number of judges has been increased in Dublin and that the backlog there has been seriously curtailed. This is good news, because it was becoming a serious hardship on litigants and, indeed, on persons accused of criminal offences in Dublin because of the delays in having their trials take place. The position in the country circuits is not so bad as it is in Dublin, but with the increase in jury trials taking place in country Circuit Courts from time to time, a backlog of civil actions can build up, with consequent hardship. However, these are periodic peaks and, by and large, can be removed without too much hardship.
There is one aspect of litigation in the Circuit Court in the country to which I would refer, that is, trials by jury in criminal matters. Very often the jury and the parties have to be brought in merely to hear a person arraigned, because it could happen that for some reason the trial would not go on on that day. Every effort should be made to avoid calling in juries in rural Ireland unnecessarily. There are practical difficulties in this, but I would rather see six or seven gardaí inconvenienced in getting word to jurors not to come than see maybe 50 or 100 jurors brought in from their farms to a court and find they are not wanted. Very often sittings take place at a busy time in rural Ireland, and every effort should be made to avoid inconvenience to these people.
Another question with which I want to deal is that of jury actions in the High Court where parties have to come possibly a very long distance to attend at a jury action and then find that the case in front of theirs will take longer than expected. They then have to stay in Dublin for a couple of days or make a long journey down and a long journey up. This may happen several times a week over a period of weeks. The reason for it, of course, is that there is no fixed timetable for the commencement of jury actions in the High Court, and the reason why there are no fixed timetables is that it is not possible to know when a particular action may end. It may be settled; it may be withdrawn from the jury; it may be settled half way through the hearing; the jury may take only a very short time to reach a decision; counsel may be unduly longwinded. There are all sorts of reasons why it is impossible to formulate an accurate timetable for jury actions.
If a timetable were to be fixed, the authorities are afraid there would be empty spaces between the ending of one jury trial and the commencement of the next if the first one were to collapse or be settled. These empty spaces could be filled if they were of any length by the judges dealing with miscellaneous applications. It could also be filled with the delivering of reserved judgments, because at the moment there is considerable delay in the giving of reserved judgments purely because judges do not have time to get them written and sometimes do not get opportunities for delivering them. It would be no bad thing if there were these gaps between jury actions. I have no doubt that these gaps could be filled satisfactorily and economically, and would be a tremendous saving in expense and convenience to members of the public who have to travel to Dublin for jury actions. It would be of great assistance to them and to practitioners in the courts to know that jury actions would commence at a fixed time and carry on without interruption until they were finished. This is something, I suggest to the Minister, that might be investigated by some of the court committees. I should not like to see the answer to the problem being to abolish jury trials, because I would consider that too drastic altogether.
Deputy Pattison made reference to the legal aid system. I should like to endorse his plea for an extension of it into the area of civil law. At the moment it is available only in criminal matters and it is available only to persons of no means or small means and in serious cases. By and large, the justices apply this means test very liberally. Nevertheless, the amount budgeted each year for legal aid is not being used. I think it was everybody's apprehension when it was introduced that it would be abused and that it could snowball into substantial expenditure. This has not happened and it indicates a responsible approach to the system by the courts and persons who have to avail of it. We can take encouragement from this reasonable user of criminal legal aid, and there should now be some extension of it into the realm of civil law.
As Deputy Pattison indicated, there are persons who are apprehensive of going to law because of the cost involved. It is no answer to them to say: "You will get a solicitor or barrister who will do it for nothing for you." This is only part of the answer, because they might, if they happen to know a solicitor or barrister who will be prepared to do it, but they might be people who have never had any dealings with a solicitor or a barrister and they would be apprehensive of facing into a man without any possibility of being able to pay him. If a person has a genuine grievance it is not right that he should be deprived of appealing to the courts to have that grievance dealt with. There should be an immediate investigation for the purpose of considering some extension of the system of legal aid to civil matters. In criminal matters the system works well and economically. I have no doubt it would not be abused if much the same type of system were introduced in regard to civil matters.
There is one aspect of its operation to which I should like to draw the Minister's attention. I refer to the fact that legal aid is available where pleas of guilty are offered and the Minister should publicise that in a suitable manner. There is the case of a person going forward from the District Court to the Circuit Court for sentence only. That is a gap in the law. I am referring now to the person offering a plea in the first instance in the District Court. At the moment legal aid is available in the Circuit Court but many district justices interpret the regulations as meaning that they cannot grant certificates where pleas of guilt are offered. I should like it brought to their notice that the regulations do, in fact, permit this and a different interpretation might change the volume of use being made of legal aid.
Deputy Pattison talked about a special building for and a less intimidating atmosphere in juvenile courts. I think he was speaking principally of Dublin; they are too formal and too institutional. That may be the case in Dublin. In rural areas the children's court is invariably held in the justice's room. It is an informal hearing in the sense that it is not in the courtroom proper. Those present are seated in a more informal manner. The courtesy and consideration given to both children and their parents in these courts are outstanding. There is no question, as Deputy Pattison suggested, of children being crossexamined or questioned in an intimidating fashion. The parents of the children are always present because the parents have to be summoned as well as the children and it was not accurate for Deputy Pattison to suggest that the children are there on their own. The system of justice in children's courts is merciful.
The Minister dealt in some detail with the Land Registry. He recognises there are difficulties. He indicated the vast increase in work which has led to these difficulties. He dealt with the different structure; instead of having sub-units to deal with a particular function, they now have geographical units and this system appears to work more satisfactorily. The Examiner of Titles can keep in touch with the mapping branch and this can lead to more efficiency. The main cause of complaint is in the mapping branch. There is too long a delay in getting a map and too long a delay in completing a dealing where subdivision and remapping is involved. The reason for the delay is not the fault of the staff. Because of the volume of work extra staff are required immediately. Considerable hardship is being caused by the delays in the Land Registry and solicitors have to take the brunt of the blame by the public because the public suffer in the ultimate. People may have borrowed money. A loan may be lost. Interest may have to be paid. These things are quite frequent and considerable hardship is caused by delay in the Land Registry. The Minister should give priority to providing all the staff necessary and/or the building to ensure that this very important section of his Department can cope efficiently and quickly with the work coming into it.
It is the Government's and the Minister's intention to have the entire property of the country registered in due course in the Land Registry. Compulsory registration is now in force in one or two counties. It cannot be extended until such time as the Land Registry is geared to deal with the extra work compulsory registration will entail. It is not geared to deal with its existing work. Consequently, there will have to be a considerable enlargement of the Land Registry if it is to cope with compulsory registration of all the property in the country. It is difficult to explain to the public what appears to the public to be the excessive formality in getting a site transfer. Surveyors have to be employed to mark maps. Ordnance sheets have to be obtained. The Land Commission has to give its consent. Solicitors have to draw up deeds. These deeds have to be stamped and lodged in the Land Registry. The ordinary layman who buys a site for a house cannot understand why that site is not in his name the very next day. Those who practice law know and understand the system, but this is an area of law reform that the Minister could look at with advantage to see if some system could be devised whereby conveyancing, particularly of plots, could be simplified. One can see the need for a more involved procedure where large areas and large considerations are involved, but there should be some via media between the two extremes so that land transfers could be simplified. This would be welcomed by the legal profession because they have to take the brunt of the public odium for the defects in the system. They have no control over the system. One remedial step would be for the Minister to increase vastly the staff in the Land Registry so that delays can be reduced to a minimum.
In conclusion, I should like to point out again what I consider to be a serious omission in the Minister's opening speech. He skated over the main feature on the scene at the moment, a feature which concerns his Department primarily. I refer to the attitude of himself and his Government towards specific elements now rampant in our society. It was good to hear Deputy P. J. Burke say that the Minister has the full support of all sides in this House but I want to hear other Members of the party opposite coming in and giving some support. Deputy Burke made the significant statement that he had been told he should not open his mouth on certain matters in this House. In the context in which he made that statement I took it to refer to the activities of subversive organisations. It would have helped us if he had told us who had given him this unsound and cowardly advice. One must suspect it came from within his own party circles and one will have that suspicion confirmed unless the Members of that party opposite come in and say unequivocably that they are on the side of law and order.
