Courts Bill, 1973: Second Stage.

Minister for Justice (Mr. Cooney)

I move "That this Bill be now read a Second Time."

The purpose of this short Bill is to provide for an increase from six to seven in the statutory number of ordinary judges of the High Court, to qualify "temporary" Circuit Court judges for appointment as permanent Circuit court judges or for re-appointment as "temporary" judges, and to remove doubts about certain appointments of Circuit Court judges made in the past.

The necessity for an additional judge in the High Court, as provided for in section 1 of the Bill, arises from the increased volume of business that has occurred in that court in recent years, coupled with the fact that the full time of one judge has for some time been, and is still being, taken up with sittings of the Special Criminal Court. The number of cases set down for hearing in the High Court has almost doubled in the past four years and a serious arrears position now exists. In addition, it has not been possible to bring into operation the important provisions in sections 1 and 7 of the Marriages Act, 1972, because of the inability of the High Court to cope with the extra business that, it is considered, would result. Section 1 of that Act allows for exemptions by a judge of the High Court from the prohibition of marriage, where either party is under 16 years, while section 7 provides for the granting of consent by a High Court judge to marriage, where either party is under 21 years and the necessary consent of the parents or guardians has not been or cannot be obtained.

The Government are satisfied that the normal growth which can be expected in the ordinary civil and criminal business of the High Court will ensure that the additional judge will be fully occupied, even after sittings of the Special Criminal Court cease. Also, the appointment of an additional High Court judge will mean that the recent assignment of one of the judges to hold the inquiry into security announced by the Taoiseach will not result in a worsening of the present situation in regard to the business of the court.

Section 2 of the Bill deals with the qualifications for appointment as a permanent or "temporary" Circuit Court Judge, Section 17 (2) (a) of the Courts (Supplemental Provisions) Act, 1961. and section 14 (1) of the Courts of Justice Act, 1936, specify that the person to be appointed must be a practising barrister at the time of his appointment or in the case of permanent appointment, a barrister District Justice. A person who is already acting temporarily as a Circuit Court judge might not be regarded as a practising barrister. Section 2 of the Bill removes doubt by providing that, for the purpose of the appointment provisions just mentioned, service as a "temporary" Circuit Court judge shall be deemed to be practice at the Bar. In the past a number of "temporary" Circuit Court judges have been given either permanent or further temporary appointments. Because of what I have said, there may be a doubt about these appointments. Accordingly, section 2 also provides that service as a "temporary" judge shall be deemed always to have been practice at the Bar for the purpose of the qualification for appointment provisions both in relation to the former Circuit Court of Justice —subsection (1)—and the present Circuit Court—subsection (2).

I may add that section 2 is not without precedent. A somewhat similar situation arose in the early days of the Courts when a High Court judge was appointed to the Supreme Court at a time when there was no statutory provision specifically qualifying a High Court judge for such appointment. The problem was resolved by section 6 of the Courts of Justice Act, 1936, which, like section 2 of the Bill, was framed so as to have retrospective effect. Later on it was found that a judge of the Supreme Court was not in terms qualified for appointment as President of the High Court. This defect in the law was cured in the Courts (Supplemental Provisions) Act, 1961.

I have mentioned the arrears situation that exists in the High Court. There are also substantial arrears in the Circuit Court, particularly in Dublin, where there has been a considerable increase in criminal business. Again, the problem has been aggravated by the fact that the time of one Circuit judge is occupied in the Special Criminal Court. The question of increasing on a permanent basis the existing statutory number of ten Circuit Court judges—including the President of the Court—is at present being examined. In the meantime, arrangements are being made to have an additional `temporary' Circuit Court judge appointed for a period of one year. This appointment will mean an increase in the number of Circuit judges—whether permanent or temporary—from 11 to 12.

I am most concerned about the serious arrears position in the High and Circuit Courts. Appointing extra judges is a most important factor in improving the position but the procedural machinery in the courts must be examined to see how it can be changed or streamlined or both so as to ensure that a citizen with a cause of action gets a speedy hearing. At the moment, from the time a case is ready for hearing, that is with all the preliminary paper work done and there is an amount of that, until it is actually heard, there is a delay of 12 months.

This delay is driving people into unfavourable settlements. This autumn there were close on 1,000 cases awaiting hearing in the High Court. One of my ambitions as Minister for Justice is to see a scheme of legal aid in civil business but, quite frankly, such a scheme would be largely nullified by the present clogged position in the courts.

There is no instant solution available to me for if I had one I would have adopted it before now. While the problem because of its complexity cannot be dealt with instantly, it can be dealt with urgently. This Bill is an earnest of my desire to do this and, in addition. I am having an urgent study made as to the implementation of some reports of the Committee on Court Practice and Procedure which have been lying in my Department for some time and which contain recommendations and suggest changes which could help substantially in improving the position.

I am keenly aware from my own knowledge and from representations from members to me of the injustice being done to some citizens in this context and I share their anxiety to remedy this injustice. The Bill now before the House is, therefore, an important one in achieving the remedy and I recommend it to Deputies.

Mr. Andrews

Towards the end of his speech the Minister referred to the ministerial ambition to have civil business taken within the scope of free legal aid. This was an ambition of the former Minister for Justice, Deputy O'Malley, and he worked extremely hard in that direction. For the time being, at least, it is the business of the present Minister for Justice to carry on that work and to ensure, as a matter of urgency, that a scheme of free legal aid in civil business is introduced.

I placed a Parliamentary question two weeks ago on this matter. The Minister could not be here because he was out of the country on official business. The Minister for Lands replied adequately on his behalf but he was evasive in reply to my question about the matter of introducing a scheme of free legal aid in civil business. Now the Minister produces this chestnut. Let me assure him that I will do everything I can in Opposition to assist him and to ensure that his ambition in this matter is realised.

As the Minister says, it is fair to say that the High Court in particular is pretty over burdened with work. It is obvious that the scope and depth of the legislation with which the High Court has to deal have expanded enormously due to modern conditions. If people cannot have disputes resolved with reasonable expedition, apart from the justice of the case, that is bad economically. If litigants show up for a whole day in court with witnesses on tap, as it were, and are sent away and told to come back another day because of the overcrowded state of the lists, that is bad economically as well as being likely to work an injustice against the best interests of the litigants.

The Minister has pointed out that there is a backlog of 1,000 cases in the High Court lists at present. I have not got the full figures on that point but, arising from my own experience in the short time since I returned to the Bar, and also from information I received from my colleagues when the Courts Bill came before the House —naturally I referred to the back-up group with which I am associated in the social and individual rights committee of the Fianna Fáil Party—I know that in the service of notice of trial in civil jury actions there is a backlog of somewhere in the region of a year. This is a hardship in two ways. The plaintiff is kept out of his money and, if the defendant makes a lodgement, the money values are eroded considerably, by the time the case is heard, having regard to the inflationary times in which we are living. The lodgment is accepted and the case is compromised as the legal people are about to go into court and have the case decided by a jury.

The Minister also mentioned the Circuit Court. To my own certain knowledge there is a backlog there of up to one and a half years and I understand that there is an inflow of six indictable offences daily into the Attorney General's office. This is quite a considerable inflow of cases. It is quite understandable that the Minister should express concern about the need for an increase in the number of judges in the High Court. I have no doubt that he will also consider the very urgent need of another increase in the number of Circuit Court judges in the near future.

I want to come back to the matter of the clogging of the list with cases, as it were, and so on. From time immemorial, the judge in charge of a particular courts list—in our case the president of the respective court—has always been sensitive to criticism that there are delays. The fact is sometimes overlooked that as well as trying cases judges carry a large administrative load—that certainly applies to the president of the various courts. The men who must carry out these administrative duties can feel quite blameless about any delays there might be and, indeed, they are to be congratulated for coping with such heavy lists.

For instance, time may be set aside for a case which cannot get on. In such circumstances the judge may feel frustrated but, in the last analysis, the important thing is not the state of any list but the quality of justice. Again, sometimes the fact is overlooked that the judge may need time to prepare written judgements—this is done in what appears to be his off time. For example, in the Supreme Court the full court must sit where the constitutionality of an Act of the Oireachtas is challenged and, by custom, where any important question is debated it is usual to have the full court of five. That is a matter for the direction of the Chief Justice but practitioners and litigants feel let down if the full court is not assembled to hear important issues debated. If a court of three hears such a case and if the decision is not unanimous, there is always a feeling that the two other judges might have made a difference.

Courts of three debate fairly straightforward accident case appeals and the like. The Supreme Court judges circuit appeals and, as such, act as High Court judges. There are two schools of thought on this matter. First, it is considered that the Supreme Court judges no longer should be required to do this in view of the heavier work load with which they must cope. The other view is that it is important that they keep in touch with everyday litigation so that they do not become too remote from the cut and thrust of litigation. I submit the answer to the second point is that the Chief Justice traditionally does not perform this task and is none the worse for that. A strong case can be made for having a reserve judge in the Supreme Court and thus the two views could be accommodated.

Courts of five would be available always, barring illness. A judge might be given time off to prepare a judgment or he might assist in hearing circuit appeals. As the Minister knows, the 12th Report of the Committee on Court Practice and Procedure recommended the appointment of an additional Circuit Court judge. In my opening remarks I expressed a desire for the creation of an extra Circuit Court judge. I imagine the Minister intends withholding the appointment of this additional judge until a decision is taken on the other recommendations on the revision of circuits contained in the 12th Report——

Mr. Cooney

I do not wish to interrupt the Deputy, but I have stated we are appointing immediately a further Circuit Court judge to bring the complement to 12.

Mr. Andrews

I understand that. I meant in addition to that. In his speech the Minister on two occasions referred to the Special Criminal Court and the fact that this court uses up the time of a judge. The continuance of this court is a matter for the Government and we submit its operation should be kept under review. As long as the national security requires it, we will support its continued existence. I want to say that without any equivocation whatever. I should like to pay tribute to the judges who have served with integrity and courage on the Special Criminal Court.

I would remind the Minister that the right to trial by jury is precious and we must not regard with levity any long dispensation from it. However, as long as the democratic institutions of the State are under attack, as long as the security of the State demands it, I repeat deliberately that we will support without doubt the continuance of the Special Criminal Court. We did our duty in that respect when it was demanded of us and we will continue to uphold democracy. Despite what has been written about Fianna Fáil by what could be described as "Coalition pamphleteers" in the recent past, as a democratic party we are dedicated to upholding the institutions of this country.

Another example of the service judges give is provided by the appointment of Mr. Justice Finlay to head the Taoiseach's inquiry on security. I would sound a note of caution here, not in relation to the judge but in relation to his office and its separation from the Executive. The Government propaganda service was hard at work before this appointment was announced officially. We had the announcement continually from some high Government spokesman three or four days before the official announcement. The Government should be careful when they behave in this fashion, when they try to make propaganda out of the situation for their own advantage. This is in no way to disparage the learned and respected judge who had nothing to do with that; from my slight personal knowledge of him, I know he would not accept that kind of publicity. He is a man of great integrity, he has the highest respect of the legal profession, and I am not being critical of him in relation to his appointment.

Under our Constitution, we have a strict separation of powers and it is as well to point out that there is not this separation of powers in England. Therefore, while I have no objection to a judge heading a tribunal of inquiry which sits in public, under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921, I have reservations—I put it no higher than that—about asking a judge to report, which must also mean advise on security. The security of the State rests fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the Government and they must accept that responsibility. I would urge them not to attempt to shrug off that responsibility.

Is the Taoiseach's inquiry headed by this respected judge to be held in secret? An element of secrecy is understandable where a question of security is involved. The judge's role traditionally is so different. He never sits completely in private. Bona fide representatives of the Press are always allowed. A few applications may be heard in chambers. He administers justice and proclaims the law.

To recap: there are a number of matters which, to my knowledge, he hears in chambers, income taxation, appeals from the commissioners of Appeal and legitimacy matters. There are other matters including matrimonial matters but they do not occur to me at the moment. It is proper that income taxation, matrimonial and legitimacy issues should be tested in private, safe from the scrutiny of publicity. These are private matters and should remain private.

A judge decides whether an Act is repugnant to the Constitution. This is on the question of the separation of powers. By that he faults the Legislature. He may strike down Executive decisions as being ultra vires or made without regard to the principles of natural justice. The principles of natural justice mean that a man has a right to be heard in his own case. On the question of matters being ruled ultra vires, the recent case of Murphy v. Dublin Corporation and the Minister for Local Government was a good example, where the Supreme Court overruled the claim to departmental privilege. The public weal was more important than the need for candour. There is a necessary tension between the Legislative and Executive side on the one hand and the Judiciary on the other. This is as it should be under our Constitution. That is why I have doubts about the propriety of asking a judge to head such an inquiry.

Without question the respected Judge Finlay will bring to the judicial inquiry his usual incisiveness and clarity of thought. The public have great faith in his integrity. These points are beyond dispute, but I consider that these gifts and rights should be reserved to his judicial sphere. These observations are not made in a carping fashion or in a spirit of disharmony. It is simply a point of view. The more we buttress the independence of the judges the greater hope we have for preserving our democracy.

Having dealt specifically with the Minister's speech, I should now like to make my observations on specific sections. Section 1 deals with the number of ordinary judges of the High Court, which shall now not be more than seven. That is acceptable to us. Is section 2 necessary? I know the Minister has not come into this House with a section that is not required, but a number of temporary appointments have been made in the past which were given the stamp of permanency. What is the position of those people?

I perused sections 37 and 43 of the Courts of Justice Act, 1924, section 14 of the Courts of Justice Act, 1936, and section 17 (2) (a) of the Courts (Supplemental Provisions) Act, 1961, in depth and examined the Bill before us. When I concluded my examination I felt that this was a painful piece of drafting. That is the first point. The second has already been posed. What is the position of the judges appointed to temporary positions and given permanent Circuit Court appointments? Is their position dealt with in this Act? The answer to that may be yes. However, on Committee Stage we can deal more fully with the Bill and the sections.

I should like to refer to the heavily overworked circuit of the city and of the county of Dublin. The Committee on Court Practice and Procedure did not recommend—I am sure the Minister will correct me if I am incorrect— that all South County Dublin should be transferred to the Dublin Metropolitan District, except the electoral area of Rathmichael, which should still be retained in the Bray Court area. The report, which is dated 26th August, 1970, is, I have no doubt, now out of date. This is in no way a criticism of the people who volunteered their services on this very worthy committee. A very strong case can be made for a court in the township on Dún Laoghaire as follows: (a) that all civil business for South County Dublin should be transacted in Dún Laoghaire; (b) that all licensing work should be transacted in Dún Laoghaire; (c) that the summary work to be transacted in Dún Laoghaire should be clarified; (d) that in fact a new court area for Dún Laoghaire and Bray would be the obvious solution to the problem. As I understand it, there is nothing in the report about the establishment of a Circuit Court in either Bray or Dún Laoghaire. In my respectful submission, this seems extraordinary since the committee recommends the establishment of a court in Tuam.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am sure the Deputy will agree this is outside the scope of the Bill.

Mr. Andrews

I just want to get it on the record. I shall not detain the House much longer and I shall deal with the particular matter in the course of a sentence or two, if the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will bear with me. I was making the point that the committee recommends the establishment of a Circuit Court in Tuam which is 20 miles from Galway city. There is a vast expanse of territory between Dublin city and Wicklow which is very highly populated. It seems extraordinary that, if a Circuit Court is to sit in Tuam, a claim for a Circuit Court to sit in Dún Laoghaire or Bray should not even be considered. I would ask the Minister—again this is no criticism of the Committee on Court Practice and Procedure—to deal specifically with the possibility of the creation of a Circuit Court in this huge densely populated area. This area is growing all the time, as is witnessed by the proposed gerrymander of the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown constituency into the constituency of Dún Laoghaire.

Mr. Cooney

The Deputy will still be safe.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy, of course, is ranging wide of the Bill now.

Mr. Andrews

I used the word "gerrymander" to give an idea of the population growth. The constituency of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown is now to be given the title of the constituency of Dún Laoghaire. This is indicative of the vast population growth in bringing about the required constitutional tolerance electorate per Deputy, not more than 30,000 and not less than 20,000, and this surely is indicative of the urgent need for a fully-fledged—forgive the unlegal expression—Circuit Court in the Dún Laoghaire area.

Where the sections are concerned, we shall have to listen to the Minister's reply to those Deputies who contribute after me before we can consider permitting the Committee Stage to be taken today. It is my intention at all times to facilitate the business of the House.

Mr. Blaney

I can fully appreciate the Minister's desire to increase the number of judges, whether it be in the Circuit Court or the High Court, in order to facilitate the long-suffering public. I emphasise the "long-suffering", something which is indicated in the Minister's own speech. We look at the figures and facts in regard to High Court cases. Those set down for hearing have almost doubled in the last four years. We take into account also his indications as to the increasing volume of business on the Circuit Court side and it would appear at first sight that the proposals in the Bill for increasing the numbers of judges in both these cases are supported by an open and shut case. It seems a very reasonable request. Without question, that would be the case were it not for recent operations by the last Government and by the present Government in the utilisation of the time of our judges, who are in very short supply, judges whose services the public badly require in order to mitigate their hardships and sufferings in so far as unheard and undecided cases of all kinds are concerned.

Despite the increasing burden of work, almost doubled in the last four years, we find that we can take a full-time High Court judge out of the existing maximum of six and allow him to devote his time to the very questionable operations of the Special Criminal Court. It would be difficult for any Minister to come in here and ask for an increase against this background but it is nothing short of impossible for the present Minister. I suppose one can only have a certain amount of sympathy for him. He was very emphatic, very clear and very precise, as he so often is, in the providing of the machinery whereby the Special Criminal Court, having been put into action, was given sufficient work to entail the services of a full-time, fully-fledged High Court judge.

I would have thought that the Minister in this case in particular would immediately have taken the obvious remedy to relieve the situation in the interests of the public, whom we are all here supposedly to serve, and that he would have made every effort to refuse to come in here to seek that which he is now seeking in this Bill, namely, additional judges, while he has a High Court judge taken up wholetime in the Special Criminal Court administering that very questionable piece of legislation passed through this House less than a year ago in the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act, 1972. I fail to understand how he has been pushed into the position of coming before us in this shamefaced way to build up the numbers of High Court judges in order to give a minimum service to the public, the public whose interests it should be the first consideration of the courts to serve. That should be their prime consideration and I do not think what one of them is doing at the moment is in the interests of the public or in the interests of the State now or in the future.

Quite recently we have had the situation of yet another High Court judge being taken to preside over a body appointed to inquire into security. This was announced by the Taoiseach recently following on the helicopter snatch from Mountjoy. I believe, and I think most of the public would be of the same opinion, that far too much was made of that particular snatch. Certainly the results arising from it do not justify the abstraction of yet another all too scarce High Court judge being taken from his normal work to preside over an inquiry to inquire into whatever it is. I just do not know but I think it is wrong that in these circumstances two much needed High Court judges, whose courts have large backlogs with people waiting over a year to have their cases heard, with many in great hardship as a result, should be put on other work. That would be fine if we had judges to spare.

There are no better people perhaps to present to the public as being impartial and to give a good image to any inquiry, no matter what it might be about, but to take them in our circumstances with the grave shortage and the large backlog of work is nothing short of scandalous in this particular circumstances which only occurred as a result of a once-and-for-all, unique and imaginative jail break by way of a helicopter snatch out of the square at Mountjoy. The Government should have grinned and borne the consequences of the laugh that was being had at them at the time rather than getting all hot and bothered and jumping in to set up an inquiry into security, drawing out of the hat a very respected High Court judge to put a front on things and then coming into this House and announcing that it would be a secret inquiry, the results of which would come to the Taoiseach.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should appreciate that we cannot discuss this matter on this Bill.

Mr. Blaney

I am not even attempting to discuss it. What I am doing is trying to indicate how ridiculous it is to be utilising the time of all too scarce a commodity, namely, High Court judges, and proposing at the same time in this House today to legislate so as to provide more of them while we wastefully use what we have of them.

That is the situation as I see it and as I think a great deal of the public must also see it. They must treat with some disdain, if not outright disbelief, the offerings of concern by the Minister for the well-being of those who are awaiting hearings in the High Court. Do they consider those things I have been mentioning and this inquiry in particular so important that they should continue to be deprived of justice being administered by those who are qualified to do so? I do not believe they accept that this is a genuine, good reason for their being further discommoded in this particular regard.

To get this secret inquiry we have a High Court judge giving his full time to it. To what avail if he can neither hear in public nor report to the public his findings? Is it not an utter waste of his time? Is it not something that can and should be laughed out of existence rather than taken seriously? The Taoiseach gets the result, the rest of us do not. The judge will have spent his time on it very wisely I have no doubt, devoting his energy and ability to it. To what purpose? For whose knowledge? For whose benefit? Is it merely to inform confidently the Leader of the Opposition?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy will agree that again he is dealing with the inquiry and not with an increase in judges.

Mr. Blaney

I get very annoyed about this because I happen to be involved in a case that has been before the High Court since this time last year. It was sent up from the District Court and it has not yet been heard nor has it even been put down for hearing. Fortunately, it is one that does not bother me or those associated with me in this matter too much but it is a scandalous situation. Surely the interests of the 1,000 people who are awaiting hearings, the administration of justice and determination of their cases are far more important than this hare-chasing created by this alleged secret inquiry. Let us have it by all means if it satisfies people but do not let us waste the time of High Court judges who are already overburdened to the degree that they have been falling behind badly in the hearing of cases. There are two I would make a present of to the Minister right away and he does not need legislation at all. Let the High Court judge out of the Special Court and get this man who is being assigned to the inquiry. Release him and get somebody else. I am sure there must be somebody else who could carry this out, maybe not with the same public face on it but certainly with the same efficiency. It is about nothing really and it is not going to be reported to anybody so what is the difference in the long run? It is merely an effort to cover up, a face-saver, an indication to the British people that we are doing their bidding even better than they are doing it themselves.

I started off on the basis that I felt sorry, in the circumstances, for the Minister, who has been forced into this position with the knowledge of the expressed mind that he gave here in the House on these and related matters that are now taking up the time of judges, whom his Department so badly needs to carry out the duties they are assigned to, that we have to have special legislation to create new ones to fill in for those who are doing things that the present Minister, in fact, does not believe should be done at all, any more than I do. It is a sorry situation and I sympathise with him but I would suggest that, even if this is to go through without any big opposition to it, because of the heavy backlog that exists we still need those who are taken up on the Special Criminal Court and on this silly face-saving inquiry. Let us have them as well if we are to have these additional ones. Let us have our own two back and give us another one if we must have him in order that the public should get their cases heard within a reasonable time as they are entitled to and not be put on the long finger with all sorts of additional hardships being created as a result.

The same thing can be said in regard to the Circuit Court judge and the shortage there and the backlog in that particular court. We are wastefully using, I would go so far as to say misusing, the time of the Circuit Court judge in the Special Criminal Court. I implore the Minister and his colleagues behind him to have a thought, it will soon be anniversary time and it is a good time to think back, as to whether their expressed, pronounced, emphatic first thoughts on the debate on the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act should not be revised and whether there is not reason, now that they are in Government, to go back to their first and very definite thoughts and convictions that that Act should never have come into being and if it did should now be repealed. As a result, there would be released two useful judges who could be doing the work they were appointed to do in the interests of the public.

We are dealing with the Bill before the House.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Blaney

The whole Fine Gael Party, bar two, were over there.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Blaney

I hear much talk of hawks and doves over there. They have a slightly different way of looking at things now and have seen them more clearly, as time has now indicated. The passage of time is making this very clear. I am asking, in order that we should have more facilities in our courts, that we should throw out anything that is unnecessarily taking up the time of the judges. There may have been a change of heart on the part of the Government or on the part of the Fianna Fáil Party. What is the difference? Let us have change, if it is proper to have change. Let us have these people and utilise them in the interests in which they were first appointed.

We should not clutter up our courts any further. It is a poor service to our people to do so. They are paying for the whole show, including ourselves here who talk or do not talk, who are silent or otherwise, who are doves or hawks. The public are paying for all and they are entitled to service. When they themselves have difficulties, legal or otherwise, they must have recourse to our courts. In their difficulties and dilemmas they are entitled to service from the people whom we solemnly appointed. Let us be fair to the judges we have. There is a case for having more judges. Let us see if we can improve on the additions asked for in this legislation.

Could we now get back those two very necessary people who have been taken from the High Court and the Circuit Court? They are a fair percentage of the total manpower at that level. Let us have them back. Let us have extra judges and give service to the community. The public are entitled to such service. I am sure that this will appeal to the Minister with his persuasiveness and his preciseness, if he can get this point across to his colleagues in Government. This is the way it should be rather than have a half-hearted effort to stop the gaps and plug the holes in the system created by other actions of the House. In other words, we make a hole and come back with some kind of strainer to stop the leak. Why not get the people back to the business for which they were appointed to do?

An attempt should be made to give a full and expeditious service in the courts at all levels to our long suffering citizens who have the misfortune or otherwise to have recourse to these institutes.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach (Mr. Kelly)

I heard Deputy Andrews saying, when commenting on this Bill, that he thought the principle of the separation of powers implied that there was something suspect about inviting a judge to chair a commission or an inquiry which was not of a particular judicial character.

Mr. Andrews

The Rules of the House prevent me from so doing, but if the House is suspended I will gladly reply to the Deputy's lecture on law.

Mr. Kelly

When I am on the receiving end of sneers from the other side of the House, I get the impression that I have reached something. Without prejudice to the question of recognising that a note of caution, as Deputy Andrews puts it, is not out of place in a matter like this, an inquiry of an unusual kind is a serious matter, but the two matters adverted to by the Deputy are beside the mark. There was the question of whether judges should be used at all in such inquiries and also whether, when they are used, proceedings should be in private or in public. The Deputy is a sensible enough man of the world to realise that an inquiry on security matters cannot be dealt with in public and that whatever advice or report is given by the judge cannot be delivered in public either: otherwise, the inquiry would be of no value. Where, therefore, is the relevance of the Deputy's reference to the question mark which must hang over work done by a judge other than in public?

With respect, Sir, it seems to me that you allowed Deputy Blaney to speak in a general way about the Special Criminal Courts and about the waste of a good High Court judge being engaged in the Special Courts. I would have thought, therefore, that a few words in regard to the Special Criminal Courts would not have been out of place.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair is trying to avoid getting away from the Bill, which concerns an increase in the number of judges, but it would not be in order to have a discussion on the Special Criminal Courts as such.

Mr. Kelly

Of course, I respect your ruling and would say in a general way that, although everybody has more or less the same feelings about the use of a High Court or any other judge in a setting which is abnormal, it is not right to consider the matter without asking whose fault it is that this situation has been arrived at. Whose fault is it that this has happened? Whose fault is it that we are short of judges to carry out the ordinary work to which Deputy Blaney adverted? I accept that it was a factor in the High Court and Circuit Court. The fault lies in the people who will not let the ordinary justice work in the ordinary way. I am sorry to say this—not sorry to say it, but sorry to leave myself open to the charge of being acrimonious. It is not so long since the spectacle was common of District Court proceedings being regularly accompanied by the parading of men with placards outside, and cordons of gardaí being addressed by men using loud hailers and exhorting them to dessert their duty and take a course of action other than that which they were commanded to take.

At the time I protested about that. I said then that this was going on, not with the connivance but at any rate with the tolerance of the then Government. It caused great annoyance to Deputy O'Malley at the time, but I am still waiting for a prosecution to take place based on the events of those days.

Mr. Andrews

We will not mention the continuous attacks by Deputy L'Estrange on district justices in this House.

Mr. Kelly

The reason why a court of this kind has to function is because the kind of people we have in this country, and who have been insufficiently kept down in the past, will not allow any other type of court to function. The only sort of justice which will work via a jury is a justice in which a juryman can feel just as safe whether he convicts or acquits the prisoner. He should be able to feel safe to go home to his wife and family in the evening, without any fear that anybody is going to be victimised, without any fear that somebody is going to be boycotted or picketed, to leave aside any mention of anything worse than that.

Once those conditions disappear, once you have an atmosphere of fear and bullying in the air, you cannot run a jury system. I am sorry to have to say that so bluntly. I am aware that I will be accused of delivering a lecture, but it is the truth even if couched in that kind of form. We cannot conduct a jury system if we have people who will not allow a jury system to work. That is the reason, and I am sorry Deputy Blaney is not here to hear it, why judges have to be taken away from their ordinary duties and sent to preside over a court which I hope will quickly disappear because the conditions which have given rise to it will also have disappeared.

Mr. O'Malley

I should like to say a few brief words about this Bill. I thought when I read it that it was a perfectly straightforward non-controversial Bill but, having listened to the last speaker one would have doubts regarding it. It is extraordinary that every time Professor Kelly comes to address the House he creates trouble and acrimony.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It is Deputy Kelly.

Mr. O'Malley

I am sorry about that. Deputy Kelly creates acrimony about the most simple and straightforward matters. I heard most of what Deputy Andrews had to say and I could not see how anybody could take offence from it. Nonetheless Deputy Andrews is attacked, with some bitterness, by Deputy Kelly. It does not help the passage of important and useful legislation through this House that such a simple and straightforward Bill as this should give rise to such acrimony. However, that is Deputy Kelly's, and his party's problem rather than mine or anybody on this side of the House.

The first thing I should like to say about the Bill is that it is proposing to have an additional permanent ordinary High Court judge. I have no great objection in principle to that but I think it is only right to point out that the need for this judge can be met in ways other than the appointment of an extra judge. The most obvious way in which the undoubted backlog of work which is there at the moment could be overcome, partly at least, is by a change in the systems of court sittings. We have an extraordinary situation in this country in that there is a long vacation in the courts which lasts for two months. This vacation applies to the Supreme Court, High Court and Circuit Court and during this time, the months of August and September, virtually no work is done. There are vacation sittings for an hour or two on one day a fortnight in the High Court but outside of that no work is done during that two month period.

Apart from that two month vacation there is a two week vacation at Christmas, there is a one week or ten day vacation at Easter, and there is a vacation of one week at Whit. These four vacations divide the four terms in the legal year. Apart from ourselves and England it is not customary in other countries to have these prolonged vacations of the courts. It is not regarded in other countries as necessary to have such long vacations in the courts. I wonder is it necessary to have such long vacations here. A change in that system, in my view, would do a great deal to lessen, if not to remove altogether, the backlog of work.

Reference was made by the Minister in his speech to reports and recommendations of the committee of which Mr. Justice Walsh was chairman and which advised on the revision of court practice and procedure. Undoubtedly there were many very valuable recommendations in those reports. Many of them have already been implemented and I hope that the great bulk of the rest of them will be implemented within a short time. There is one note which runs through all those reports and recommendations and that is a sort of basic acceptance of the present basic system. I think it is no harm that some people should begin to question whether the whole basic system of court procedure which we inherited 50 odd years ago is in fact beneficial or necessary in this country.

We have heard today from the Minister that the delay between the time an action is set down for hearing and the time it is actually heard in the High Court is about 12 months. That is very disturbing but what is equally disturbing is the fact that before you can get to the stage where you can get the action down for trial a preliminary procedure has to be gone through which, in practice, usually takes about 12 months also. The number of pleadings and the number of stages in the pleadings to my mind is totally unnecessary and creates work and delay.

In my view it would be no harm to run through the stages that have to be gone through before one can get to the stage of putting an action down for hearing and starting one on a 12 month wait. A plenary summons has to be issued by the plaintiff, the other side enters an appearance to that, another document. The plaintiff then issues a second document called a statement of claim. The defendant then sends him a notice for particulars arising out of the statement of claim. The plaintiff, after he has obtained all the necessary information, has to send back a reply to the notice for particulars and when the defendant has assimilated all that he prepares his defence and files it. When that has been done the plaintiff considers and files what is called the reply to the defence. At that stage notice of trial can be served.

These are the basic steps that have to be taken in every action. There are various other steps which in some actions may have to be taken. The average delay in going through all those procedural steps of pleading in advance is about 12 months, sometimes it is more. The result now is that it is impossible, even with the greatest expedition on all sides, to get a case, a simple straightforward civil case in the High Court, on for hearing within two years of the accident or other incident out of which it arises. It is wrong that people should have to wait a minimum of two years to have a matter adjudicated upon.

What is proposed in this Bill may go some way towards lessening some part of it. It will lessen the 12 months period of waiting after the case has been set down for trial, but it will do nothing whatever to shorten the 12 months waiting period, because, in effect, so far as the litigant is concerned, that is what it is, while all this archaic system of pleading is gone through.

In other countries two documents suffice: a claim by the plaintiff setting out some detail of what he is complaining about and what he is looking for; and a reply to that by the defendant denying, in his view, why the plaintiff should be entitled to what he is looking for. Basically, the six or eight steps that have to be gone through amount to that, and there is no reason why it could not be done in two rather than in eight documents.

Another reason why we have such delays in the High Court is that virtually every civil case based on negligence is heard by a jury. The House will recall that two years ago, in the Courts Act, 1971, the House abolished civil jury trials in the Circuit Court. They were not much availed of, and it did not make any great difference anyway because I think the average number per annum was somewhere in the region of ten or, perhaps, a little less. However, the principle involved there, which I think has been very readily accepted by everyone, surely applies also in the High Court. If no injustice has been done to litigants in the Circuit Court —and bear in mind that the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court is now £2,000—one can legitimately ask whether any injustice would be done by limiting the right to a civil jury trial in the High Court.

In England and most other countries the right to civil jury trial is very limited. Ninety-five per cent or more of the cases which are in this backlog of 1,000 cases to which the Minister referred in the High Court jury list at the moment are actions based on negligence arising out of traffic accidents or accidents at work. Negligence is an issue, perhaps, 25 to 30 per cent of the time. In the remainder of the cases it is simply a question of assessing damages and a jury is called in for the purpose of assessing the amount of money that should be given to the plaintiff for the injury he received.

I do not believe that a jury has any special quality for making what is basically a technical assessment. I believe a judge could do it at least as well. In almost all of these cases in England it is done by a judge. A judge can assess damages in the normal case in a matter of hours. If it has to go before a jury, the times they have to be addressed are so numerous and, the detailed explanations that have to be given to them are so lengthy, that a similar case would take a day or possibly two days. One could cut down to about 25 per cent the amount of time that is involved in these cases if the assessments were made by a judge. I do not think any injustice would be caused by it. It is done in the Circuit Court with general satisfaction to everyone.

Insurance companies plead at the present time that one of the chief reasons for the very high premiums they find themselves forced to charge is due to the fact that we have retained the civil jury system in the High Court here and that awards here are very considerably higher than awards for corresponding injuries in Britain. Undoubtedly, that is so. I am not saying that the award should be lower, but awards should be on a more scientific basis than the rather haphazard situation we have at the moment, where one jury may value a particular injury £10,000 higher or £10,000 lower than another jury might.

I mention these things as an example of the way time could be saved in the High Court, as examples of the way this backlog could be overcome by means other than those in this Bill. I do not dispute the Bill, but it is an easy way out, because it does nothing to change a system that is patently unsatisfactory; indeed, it does a great deal to perpetuate it, because if the situation were to be found in two, three or four years time that there was again a backlog for some reason, it might well be a very easy way out for whoever would be Minister for Justice at that time to say: "Instead of seven ordinary judges of the High Court as we established in 1973, we shall now have eight ordinary judges, and the extra one will try to get rid of the arrears of work."

A more fundamental approach is necessary to what is a problem and a serious one that is causing a lot of injustice to litigants who are in court, not through any wish of their own but in an effort to get compensation for an injury done to them through negligence.

The Minister mentioned that one of the reasons for the arrears at the moment is that a High Court judge has been more or less continuously sitting in the Special Criminal Court since its establishment in May, 1972. That gives me the opportunity to join with Deputy Andrews in paying tribute to the eight judges who have served in that court and, in particular, in paying tribute to the first three who sat in that court, because the problems facing them were far greater than the problems facing those who came on some months later when the ice was broken, as it were, and when the intimidation was not as great as it was at the start. This country is fortunate that judges of the highest standing were prepared very readily to serve on a court in circumstances that were difficult and that were leaving them open to abuse, threats and so on. Their readiness to serve on that court and the consummate fairness with which they dealt with everybody before that court has done much to enhance the standing of the Judiciary in this country.

Like most speakers here, I would naturally regret that in criminal matters it was necessary, in the first place, to establish, and it is still necessary to maintain, the Special Criminal Court. I would hope it would not be maintained any longer than is necessary, but we might as well make it perfectly clear that at the moment and, indeed, I would say in the immediately foreseeable future, it is necessary that the Special Criminal Court should be maintained. It has achieved a great deal by the fair way in which many people have been tried. It has contributed a good deal to the maintenance of the rule of law in this part of the country.

Deputy Kelly found place in his speech to criticise the Government of which I was a member for allowing picketing or parading to take place in front of certain courts during the past couple of years. I want to avail of the opportunity to place on the records of the House the precise position in that regard. First, in the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act, 1972 there is a section prohibiting the picketing of courts or parading in front of them. That Act was passed on 3rd December, 1972 and signed by the President on the same day, Sunday, to the best of my recollection. As and from that date I am not aware of any picketing or parading in front of any court. If it happened, it was only for a matter of seconds because as and from that date the gardaí had power to deal with that situation. Up to then they had no such power. Parading before or picketing a courthouse was not an offence under our criminal law until 3rd December, 1972; I believe it should have been and I was very glad to have played a part in making it an offence.

Up to then the only way in which picketing of courthouses could be dealt with was on the direction of the judge presiding in the court in question and for the most part the judges—not exclusively—decided that since they were not influenced by the carry-on outside they would not, as it were, dignify those taking part in these activities by having them brought before the court. I think, with respect to the judges concerned, that was a mistake; they should have much more regularly instructed the gardaí to go out and arrest these people and have them charged with contempt of court. The judges did not decide on that. I felt strongly for a year or more that we would have to make this a statutory criminal offence so that the gardaí could move on their own initiative rather than at the request of a judge. We did so in that Act and it has never happened since.

It is no harm to remind Deputy Kelly, although he was not in this House at the time, that the Act was very violently opposed and very severely criticised for among other things, this very provision which was regarded as unnecessary, as creating an unnecessary criminal offence, and it was suggested that all sorts of people involved in advising litigants in civil matters could get themselves into trouble. Happily, that Bill passed and has proved of tremendous value both to the previous and the present Governments in the maintenance of law.

The only other thing I wish to say on the Bill is that section 2, as drafted, is, to say the least of it, confusing and to some extent repetitive. There is a slight difference between subsections 1 and 2 but it is not clear that the whole thing needs to be said twice. Perhaps the Minister could deal with that more appropriately on Committee Stage. I should like some explanation of the necessity to express section 2 in the way in which it is expressed. The meaning is probably reasonably clear simply to ratify temporary appointments and count them as practice at the bar for the purpose of permanent appointments. One would imagine that could have been expressed in two or three lines rather than 14 or 15.

Subject to what I have said about delays in the courts, I welcome the Bill but it is only right to warn the House that this is an easy way out for a Minister for Justice. Ideally, the Minister should get down to a much more fundamental reappraisal of the causes of delay in the courts. If he did, he would achieve far more than by what is essentially a stop gap measure in this Bill. Better results with greater benefits to the people generally would be secured by a fundamental rethinking on the necessity for the elaborate and time-consuming procedures in our courts. The backlog or arrears of work under discussion here today would disappear if that were done. It is an easy way out to appoint an extra judge but it is no solution to the problem.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries (Mr. M.P. Murphy)

I should like to make some general comments on the Bill. For many years of my membership of this House I have found that usually on the case of Bills dealing with our courts or the Department of Justice the debate is confined to the legal members of the House on both sides and that non-legal Members are rather diffident about taking part. That is regrettable because our courts and how they are constituted are of prime importance and all legislation dealing with them and their activities and with the judicial system are of major importance to the nation. I was rather disappointed in listening to the debate that not one non-legal Member of the House took part.

Mr. O'Connor

I do not think Mr. Blaney is a legal man. The Deputy forgot him.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

Excuse me if I overlooked him. We got an interesting picture from the former Minister for Justice who gave us some idea of procedure and told us of improvements that could be made in the system. He actually detailed such proposals—curtailment of holiday periods, the desirability of having the courts working more frequently and possibly working longer hours than at present. But I was surprised that during his own term of office he did not seem to take any steps to promote those ideas or formulate legislation which would put his ideas on the Statute Book.

One of the secondary reasons for my intervention was the interesting talk Deputy O'Malley gave us on procedures to get an action before the court. He told us that the 1,000 cases awaiting decision in the High Court arise mainly from traffic accidents. I assume that his figures are reasonably correct and factual. He is a member of the legal profession and I am sure his information is quite factual. He indicated that you have to adopt procedures which, to be candid, some of us did not know existed. As a Member of this House I know that you have to go through a system of pleadings. There are preliminary pleadings, three going one way and three the other way, which consume 12 months in time and which consume I do not know how much in money; that is beyond me. You have to spend another 12 months doing other types of work and making other pleadings before you get the case before the court. That is the procedure as Deputy O'Malley sees it. To put it mildly it is rather pitiful from the point of a layman that a cumbersome, clumsy system should operate.

Reverting to his statement that 95 per cent of cases awaiting decision are traffic accident cases, what happens in a traffic accident? One car strikes another. The cars are damaged and possibly the occupants are injured. Pleadings may be made by one side that the other party was at fault and vice versa. Surely some less cumbersome system could be found to determine the rights and wrongs of such a case. People who suffered injuries and who had to be hospitalised for lengthy periods have suffered a great deal of mental injury, if I can so describe it, waiting to hear about their cases, running to solicitors and doctors, and trying to find out when their cases will be resolved. This mental strain which extends over a period of a couple of years is unfair to such people. I am dealing with the case of a person who was the victim of a traffic accident in which the responsibility rested with the other party. I am not going into the question of what happens in court other than to comment on Deputy O'Malley's statement.

The case comes to court and usually in a two-sided case—sometimes there may be three-sided cases —there are eight legal people working for the parties, four for each side. Most of the cases are dealt with by juries. We have the additional information from Deputy O'Malley that, on average, a jury action on a traffic accident involves an extra day. The Minister is quite new to his job but he is as fully conversant with legal principles, with our Constitution and court procedures as Deputy O'Malley. Both of them are members of the same profession. I suggest that the Minister should have a look at the procedures to see whether agreement could be got on modifying them and making it easier to get the cases on the judge's desk. I would be prepared to go a long way with Deputy O'Malley in his suggestion that the three types of preliminary proceedings should be reduced to one. This matter could be worked out around a table better than in the House possibly. Naturally it would have to come before the House in its final form.

I agree that traffic accident cases can be best determined by the Judiciary. This is relevant to the Bill because mainly it centres around the appointment of an extra judge to overtake the backlog. It is entirely beyond the competence of ordinary people to make an assessment of what is a fair and reasonable sum to grant to a successful applicant for his injuries. It is difficult for the ordinary jurymen —and several of them have mentioned this to me down through the years— to make such an assessment. They do not regard themselves as qualified to make an assessment. They have no qualifications in that field. I would agree with the suggestion made in the course of this debate that very often the amount of the damages is assessed in a rather haphazard fashion. People claiming damages think it is better to go before a jury of well-to-do citizens who are likely to think big and give them better damages.

Without labouring that point, I suggest to the House that, so far as civil actions are concerned, the time has come when the jury system should be brought to an end. Apart altogether from the additional strain it puts on the court, it also puts a strain on the individual jury men, business men who are called away from their business for a week or nine or ten days, or longer, to deal with civil actions, mainly traffic accident cases. I want to make this suggestion and I have made it on previous occasions. A sizeable percentage of our people think this feasible. We should overhaul the system as far as the determination of traffic accidents are concerned and we should have a less clumsy and cumbersome way of dealing with them. I would be in favour of the cases being determined by those who are qualified to do so and whose job it is to make assessments and the necessary inquiries in connection with the amount of damages to be awarded.

I intervened in this discussion for two reasons. First, I should like to see more of the non-legal Members of the House take part in debates on the courts and the Judiciary. They should have no hesitation in expressing their points of view. Many people do not understand the legal procedures and the language used. In 1973 there is no room for words such as "whereas", "wherefor" and "whereafter". I do not know if it is intended that all those lengthy documents should confuse people but they certainly succeed in doing this. The language used should be simple and straightforward, capable of being understood by ordinary people. The system we have has been in existence for more than 200 years. The Minister for Justice would be performing a worthwhile task if he would overhaul the system of determining traffic accident cases in particular. If that were done it would not be necessary for him to come here in two years' time, as was pointed out by Deputy O'Malley, to ask for an additional judge or more help to determine court cases.

The Minister is in a better position than I to make an assessment of the suggestion thrown out by Deputy O'Malley regarding curtailment of holiday periods. I am not going to enter into this discussion but I think the suggestion deserves close consideration, particularly as it was made by a solicitor who understands court procedure. If a non-legal man had made the suggestion it might have been pointed out he did not understand the position, that he did not know how much work these people do, but the suggestion was made by a member of the legal profession.

Mr. Esmonde

I am in agreement with certain of the matters referred to by Deputy O'Malley. I do not think there is disagreement between Deputy O'Malley and the Minister for Justice in that certain matters on court procedure require tightening up and radical amendment. Deputy O'Malley has outlined the procedure required in a straightforward motor accident case in the High Court, whereas in the Circuit Court, probably dealing with the same kind of facts, with a lesser amount of damages and the same number of witnesses, there would be only two forms of pleading, claim and defence.

I can see no justification for the present rather cumbersome method used in the High Court. Of course, there is the point that by the method used in the High Court it is possible to collect revenue by way of stamps on documents. One would have to consider that aspect also because stamps on documents go towards some of the costs and expenses of maintaining the courts. That does not mean only judges but also the various offices associated with them.

Something can be done about the long vacation, the two months' recess in August and September. There is a good argument for reducing it to a maximum of six weeks but I would not be in favour of any interference with the other vacations. Possibly the public do not understand that the amount of legal matters that appear in the courts is merely a tip of the iceberg in the legal work that is going on. Of the cases that go to court a considerable number are settled but frequently this means the litigant must bring the case to the door of the court before reason and common sense prevail. However, even if this is the case, the tip of the iceberg is entitled to an early and ready trial no matter what may be the claim or the defence. It is a matter of justice, the right of every citizen in the State. Unfortunately, as matters have now turned out, litigants and citizens are not getting those rights except on a postponed basis. It is a serious matter to see that there were 1,000 High Court actions pending at the end of August. From the Minister's statement I do not know if they are what might be called current cases or cases that should have been reached but were not dealt with. Possibly the Minister might be able to elucidate on this matter.

From my professional knowledge, I am aware that sometimes cases take two or three years before they are heard. It is not realised that cases are put in the queue and if one steps out of the queue one's case goes to the end. This is a very serious matter from the litigant's point of view. One must remember that every case that comes to court is different and, from the point of view of the parties involved, it is unique. There is a personal aspect in every case that goes to court. Frequently I have been irate at the delay in appointing extra judges because it is clearly apparent to me as a practitioner, and to my fellow-practitioners at the Bar, that there is a serious shortage of judges. There may have been resistance on the grounds that this was adding to the overall costs of litigation in that extra salary must be provided for a judge and the extra staff. If one equated the costs of an extra judge with the costs and expenses the litigant would be saved, then the costs and expenses expended on an extra judge would be infinitesimal.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present.

Mr. Esmonde

I was dealing with the comparable costs that could be saved by the appointment of an extra judge. If an extra judge were appointed it would save litigants a considerable amount of money. If, for example, an accident case were to be heard in the High Court in Dublin, the people involved must travel 100 miles or more. They must bring a specialist from a provincial area, their family doctor and maybe an engineer or other expert to Dublin. If the case is not heard the first day that means added costs and expenses.

I was associated with a case which was postponed for three days before it was heard, although it had been listed for the first day. When my client saw the cost barometer rising considerably he did not go into court. He paid to avoid having to pay the increased costs. That is a very serious situation and a bad indictment of our legal system. I know also of cases where settlements were more or less forced on people because of these delays. This could be got over by getting a case specially fixed. I do not know if any Member of this House knows what the position is about getting a case specially fixed. He would find it easier to do many other things. A very special case must be made before a case can be specially fixed.

I have experience of another legal system similar to our own, the Australian legal system. I discussed the legal system in Western Australia with practising and academic lawyers. I gathered that it was established practice there that if a person had a case on in the Supreme Court, which is the equivalent of our High Court, that it was specifically fixed and that was the end of the matter. This was done months before for the convenience of the lawyers, the clients and the witnesses. One could say that time could be wasted by such a procedure. I do not think time is ever wasted in facilitating people who are looking for justice if you want to produce a fair legal system.

Too often one goes into court on behalf of a client and gets the feeling that the judge sitting on the bench is nervously looking over his shoulder wondering how he will deal with the number of cases piling up. That atmosphere becomes evident in court. This Bill has been unduly delayed and has annoyed me and some of my colleagues who have seen the actual procedure work.

There is another aspect of the workings of the court about which the public have a misconceived notion. They ask lawyers the hours of court sittings. They are from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2.30 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. People say these hours are very short. They do not realise that the judge sitting on the bench must concentrate all the time. He cannot take it easy at any stage because whether he is deciding the case or not, he must have the facts under such control that he can properly put them to a jury. One can realise how important a judge is when there is a criminal trial in process. Then the liberty of the individual and justice in a very acute form is involved. If judges are overworked there is a tendency, or a real danger I might say, of injustice being done. People going into a court of law should look on it as a friendly place and not a place where they will be terrified. They go there for justice. They should be welcomed by the judge. He is a public official, on a public salary and should be able to take his time and ease doing the right thing by the litigants who come before him. He should not be asked to work under pressure.

Very often a judge has to deal with highly technical matters. One day he may have to grasp the principles of physiology and the next day he may find himself having to turn into an obstetrician in order to grasp the argument advanced before him. Next day he may have to turn himself into an engineer or an architect. He must grasp the science for the purpose of making a decision and doing justice by the parties. Very often the work of a judge involves the reading of a colossal amount of documentation. In the course of a trial he must take copious notes. I had the experience of being involved in a case lasting 21 days. The unfortunate judge had a monumental amount of work to do by the time the case was finished. He started to deliver his judgment at 11 o'clock one morning; there was a break of one hour for lunch and the case finished at five o'clock in the evening. That may be a rather extreme example but it does illustrate the type of work judges have to do. On Monday morning in the High Court I have seen 70 or 80 applications having to be dealt with by one judge because of a shortage of judges. Judges fall ill. They can have family problems and difficulties which may prevent their attending court. Deciding matters between litigants is a colossal burden to put on any man's shoulders.

The President of the High Court and the Chief Justice try to allocate work fairly so that the machine will run smoothly. Both have done good work in that regard and so has the president of the Circuit Court and the chairman of the District Court. There is, however, a limit to human ingenuity and luck in working out a programme under the circumstances I have outlined. I am not painting a gloomy picture. Generally speaking, the legal profession and the Bench are quite happy people, but there is grave overloading of work and, that being the case, one is concerned that justice may not be done.

One very often hears that not alone should justice be done but that it should be seen to be done. Where justice is done in five minutes flat in a court of law very often one of the parties involved comes out of court without a clue as to what has happened. On occasion I have spoken to a client outside the court and found that client under the fond impression that he had won his case when, in fact, he had lost it hands down. That will give an idea how quickly things can happen. I think the courts should be run on the basis that the ordinary lay person, whether he be a litigant, a witness or an onlooker, should fully understand what is going on; there is no reason for making the law or justice complicated in its application or in its understanding. A very important aspect of justice is that people should understand it because, if they understand it, they will respect it. They will know how it works and if they want a change in the law they will understand how it should be changed. The law and justice should be clearly understood by every person of normal intelligence.

In recent times there has been a tendency to put matters to arbitration. This is typical. It illustrates the fact that the courts are somewhat overloaded. This is a bad sign and this is a matter that should be examined very carefully by the Minister and his Department.

There could be a change for the better in the sittings of the courts. It is my recollection that a committee of the Bar Council recommended that civil sittings in the Circuit Court could be reduced to three times a year. It should not be necessary to have sittings four times a year. It would be necessary in criminal cases in provincial areas because a person might be in custody and there should be an early trial. It might ease the load in the Circuit Court if sessions were three times a year with possibly longer sittings in each town. That would lead to a centralisation of activity and those involved would allow for that. It would be more satisfactory than having the courts sitting for a few days every eight or ten weeks and it would cut down costs. It would also obviate the necessity of a man trying to get himself into two places at the same time. The disease is perennial and barristers and so on can suffer from it. That situation might be helped considerably by a special listing of cases. One Circuit Court judge has availed of this procedure and it has greatly eased the burden where litigants are concerned. It means they know their case is likely to be reached on a particular day instead of having to take its chance in a queue.

There is a list in the High Court which does assist in making things easier to some extent for litigants, but I have instanced the case in which a client of mine spent three fruitless days waiting for the case in which he was interested to come on. Possibly too many cases are listed to avoid any danger of collapse but I think there has been an undue pre-occupation on the part of certain members of the Bench with regard to a possible collapse of the list. If there are 12 cases listed and the 12 cases are settled, then the judge has done his job and the litigants have had their satisfaction in that their difficulties have been resolved. I would like to stress that point because there seems to be an idea in certain judicial minds that they must be seen to be slogging away at a case all day in court. What is required is availability of judges within a reasonable time and an increase in the number of judges will ensure that availability.

I gather Deputy O'Malley believes this is not a real solution to the problem. He said the Bill was an easy way out. I do not regard it as an easy way out or, for that matter, a way out. My personal view would be that even with these extra appointments it will not deal with the whole situation. I regard the present situation as one of some sort of crisis. It is a terrible thing to have a 12 months' delay before a person can get access to justice. There is a lot to be said for structural reform and procedural reform and possibly a change concerning the long vacation. However, I think the Parliamentary Secretary, who spoke before me, did not like the jury system too much and I think Deputy O'Malley did not care for the jury system too much. The Parliamentary Secretary, if I may be forgiven for making a slightly legal point, made the case that he was putting forward a layman's point of view. If you want a layman's point of view, the only way you will get it is to have a jury to try your case. There is a lot to be said for the jury's view.

Mr. Andrews

Hear, hear.

Mr. Esmonde

Indeed, since the removal largely of juries in England some judges over there have been quite outspoken in their views concerning the doing away with juries. They feel at a great loss. There is a certain type of case—it is very hard to typify or describe it—where it is greatly in ease of a judge to have a jury to decide the case. A type of case that lends itself to the jury system on the civil side is one concerning the law of defamation— libel and slander. A jury is eminently suited to try that type of case. In a particular set of circumstances, one knows as a lawyer or as a layman that judges could quite easily take completely opposed views because of their preferences or their prejudices. At least when a matter goes before a jury there is something of the law of averages, there is the ordinary man from the street coming in as he sees things, as he wants to see justice done to his fellow-citizens. He will obviously look at it through his own eyes. He is making the law for his fellow-citizens. I would certainly be very adverse to the removal of the jury system. I know it has been used here, with some reason, as one of the grounds for the delay in litigation but if that were a cause of delay I would say we should get more judges but still keep the jury. The jury system is possibly unique to the English legal system. I may be wrong in my history but I think it started with the English common law system, the Englishman's preference for being tried by his equals. There is a lot to be said for it. I do not think it is always right to be tried by a semi-technocrat, which is what a judge is.

I heard about a case once that was tried by a judge, a very eminent man in his profession who had been many years on the bench. It was a simple case of a person who sued his garage in respect of repairs to his motor car. I am just giving an instance of where a man can go, in my eyes, a little bit wrong through being out of touch. The man who owned the car had to get out every quarter of an hour and put a can of water in his radiator. A job was supposed to have been done on the radiator. That judge dismissed that unfortunate man's claim against the garage because he thought it was quite normal for a car to have to be filled up every quarter of an hour. This sort of situation can arise. While not criticising the Judiciary, a judge could possibly be out of touch in an everyday situation where the juryman is useful. I suppose like all sections of society there are good judges, bad judges and indifferent judges. You can have judges with prejudices. I do not think there is any practising lawyer in any part of the world who would not say that certain judges have certain human minor prejudices or leanings one way rather than another in dealing with certain situations.

Something that puzzled me when this Bill was mooted was what the attitude of the Opposition would be. I know Deputy Andrews goes along with it and I agree with his reasons for so doing, but I was a bit puzzled as to why there has been such a long delay in providing extra judges when it was very obvious that the system was creaking at its seams from lack of judges. I think we got an answer this evening in Deputy O'Malley's speech. I am glad that this situation will be rectified.

There has been some slight debating heat generated over the appointment of a judge to preside over security arrangements. Leaving aside the personality and the ability of the particular judge concerned, who is above reproach and was one of our very brilliant members of the Bar and certainly honoured his position on the Bench, I think he is the proper person to preside in a matter of this sort because you are dealing with prisons and prisoners and other matters relating to security. Very often judges have to make fine distinctions in coming to an assessment of a situation. Where somebody else might rush in and dish out penalties a judge might sit back and consider whether the cure would be worse than the disease. All this comes back to the mental attitude of the people who come before the court. A judge is an independent type of person who would be the proper person to preside over a private inquiry of this nature. Any report from such a man would have the confidence of this House even though it is a private report to the Taoiseach and rightly so. It has to be because it deals with security. It is not a matter that can be in the first instance put before this House. As has been said by the Opposition spokesman, the matter of security is one for the Government though I would like to remind the Opposition that a responsible attitude on the part of the Opposition also helps.

Mr. Andrews

That attitude has been expressed as forthcoming.

Mr. Enright

I should like to welcome this Bill. It is good to see the number of judges in our courts being increased. Deputy Andrews, as well as the vast majority of Deputies and the public at large who have any connection with law, is well aware of the long delays people face in having cases dealt with in the courts. Delays occur in all civil actions coming before the courts. There are delays in having cases heard. People tend to become easygoing and say: "The case will be heard eventually". Delays which arise because of insufficient judges are particularly hard for the less well-off people to bear. People may be involved in traffic accidents. Their injuries may result in loss of pay. A stay in hospital may result in a loss of several weeks' pay. A man may be without income for a long time. His dependants may suffer seriously. He may have to depend on social welfare, home assistance or the goodness of his friends.

An individual injured in an accident may reach a stage where he is anxious to have his case settled at any price. This should be rectified. A man may settle in order to avoid going to court. This Bill should remedy that situation. This happens all the time in the District, Circuit and High Courts. In the long run the insurance companies are the only beneficiaries. I welcome this Bill, which should speed up the hearing of cases.

Juries have been mentioned. In the Circuit Courts many jurors are summoned on hearing days. As many as 60 jurors may be called to attend. Of these 35 may have no business in court. Before the jurors reach the courts the county registrar will have notified the Garda who go around to the homes of the jurors with their summonses. All this involves expense. The number of jurors summoned on a particular day should be reduced.

I often receive representations from people who have been summoned for jury service. Such people may lose pay for their day's work. They may have to attend court for two or three days. A person is compelled to come to court but he should not be at a loss. Jurors should be compensated properly. They should also be paid travelling allowances. Jurors often assess damages. Their dependants should not suffer a loss of £15 or £18 because the breadwinner is attending court. The jury system should be continued not alone in criminal cases but also to attend actions where damages are being assessed.

Deputy Esmonde rightly pointed out that some of our judges who have spent ten or 15 years on the Bench reach a situation where they may not be in as close contact with the day-to-day lives of the people as those who are on juries and who are mixing daily with the citizens of the country. The jury system is the fairest way of assessing damages suffered as a result of accidents or injury. If a man loses three or four fingers the person most likely to assess correctly the damages due to him would be a juryman living in the same area. Such man knows the effect of the loss suffered. Therefore we should retain our jury system. One sector who would like to see that system go are insurance companies because it is their opinion that in some cases juries award compensation that is in excess of what is warranted, but I do not believe that to be so. I believe they are fair awards decided on by 12 reasonable men.

There are a few other points I would put to the Minister and these relate to matters which county registrars might look into. In regard to the hearing of criminal cases it is the general practice that these are heard on the opening day of a session, but in the case of a hearing being adjourned the county registrar should be given reasonable notification to that effect by the State solicitor applying for the adjournment and if it happens to be the defendant who is seeking the adjournment the same should apply. In regard to civil cases solicitors and counsel should notify county registrars as to whether the cases are going ahead.

I am not familiar with the procedure in the courts in Dublin but I am aware that in the country one finds long lists of up to 50 cases awaiting hearing. A person whose case was on such list and who was not from the area in which the case was to be heard would have no way of knowing whether the hearing was to be adjourned, so that in the event of an adjournment witnesses might be present unnecessarily in court. It may be found that any case might not be heard at all during the session for which it was listed. On the other hand a person might take a chance on his case not being called but might find that it had been called because of a number of earlier listed cases being adjourned. This leads to much confusion. I suggest that county registrars get in touch with the solicitors and bar associations throughout the country so as to have lists drawn up setting out the specific days on which individual cases would be heard. This would require much consultation but it is important that some effort be made in this respect. The co-operation of the solicitors, the barristers, county registrars and, in criminal cases in particular, the Garda Síochána is necessary in dealing with this problem.

This Bill does not refer to the District Court but, in passing, I might say that since the increase in the jurisdiction of the District and Circuit Courts there has been an increase in the civil lists for these courts. I suggest that the Minister consult the District Court clerks in regard to having special sittings in respect of civil lists. I have been in the courts recently where rent cases went on all morning while an Attorney-General's case was not taken until the afternoon. This should not happen, especially since people summoned by the Attorney-General to attend must be present if they do not wish to have a bench warrant issued for their arrest; it is too bad that they should be present in court all day only to find that the case in which they were giving evidence was not called. This gives witnesses the impression of being treated as second class citizens and, consequently, they may lose some of their respect for the courts which are such an important part of our democratic system. It is the responsibility of each of us here to ensure that citizens have a proper approach to the courts. I welcome this Bill.

Minister for Justice (Mr. Cooney)

I wish to thank all Members who contributed to this debate and to thank in particular the party opposite who, through Deputy Andrews, expressed their acceptance of the principle of the Bill, that is, the appointment of an extra High Court judge in an effort to do something about the arrears in the High Court.

The debate has been wide-ranging. Deputy Blaney attempted to drag in the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act while Deputy O'Malley questioned the adversary system and Deputy Esmonde spoke of the judge who knew so little about mechanically propelled vehicles. I do not propose to reply in detail to every point made because many similar points were made by several speakers.

Specifically, the Bill is an effort to deal with the arrears position in the High Court. The position in the Circuit Court was referred to also. It is serious there, too. In introducing this Second Stage I indicated that the Government intend to recommend the appointment of an extra Circuit Court judge so as to bring the complement to 12. It is our intention also, but this will require legislation, to increase to four the number assigned permanently to Dublin. At the moment this number is two and this is inadequate for the amount of business to be done in the Dublin Circuit Court. These changes were recommended by the Committee on Court Practice and Procedure. The other matters recommended in that report require further consideration.

Deputy Andrews suggested that the districts of Dún Laoghaire and Bray are now populous enough—indeed, they always were—to require Circuit Courts. The committee which examined the re-organisation of the Circuit Court did not recommend this specifically but I have no doubt they were conscious of the problem in respect of those areas because they gave much attention to them in respect of the District Court position. I wonder whether it would suit to have a separate Circuit Court sitting in Dún Laoghaire and Bray, bearing in mind that the people who would have to man those courts would be lawyers practising from the Bar Library and solicitors practising, by and large, from the city. The inconvenience involved in that respect might be such as to make it impracticable for the courts to be manned. However, that is an issue that is not strictly relevant to the main purpose of the Bill.

I concede readily, that, as Deputy O'Malley says, to appoint an extra judge is possibly the easy way out, but it is one way out that must be taken. Unless we have enough judges, the arrears will not be cleared regardless of how speedy the system is. It is possibly the easiest step that can be taken from my point of view and I make no apologies for taking what is an easy step. It can be taken quickly and that is why it is being taken now. As I said when I was introducing this Stage the problem is urgent and anything that can be done urgently should be done. It does not permit of an instant solution. It is too complex to permit that but it does require an urgent solution.

The appointment of an extra judge is a very practical and important step and it recognises the urgency of the situation. I agree with Deputy O'Malley that the whole procedural system in the High Court requires to be looked at. Indeed, it has been looked at by the Committee on Court Practice and Procedure. This committee has made some very valuable recommendations, particularly the recommendations contained in the sixteenth interim report concerning the jurisdiction of the Master of the High Court. These recommendations were made primarily to try to speed up the pre-trial procedures of which Deputy O'Malley rightly complained. This report was furnished in January, 1972. I am pleased to say that at the moment I am having legislation drafted to implement the recommendations of that report.

Some of the recommendations in that report regarding the Master and his place in the pre-trial procedures were made as far back as 1965 in the third interim report which dealt with jury trial in civil actions. I am hopeful that this legislation revising the role of the Master in the High Court when it is enacted will have substantial effect in diminishing considerably the pre-trial delays. I am not satisfied that it will reduce the preliminary pleadings to the level that Deputy O'Malley would seem to suggest is a desirable level.

In this regard it is necessary to compare the three courts and the three procedures. In the District Court which now has jurisdiction up to £250 all that is necessary for a case to come before a district justice is for the plaintiff to issue a short and informal statement of the nature of his claim. This claim merely states that he claims £X for damages for negligence and possibly alleges that the negligence was for the driving of a motor car on such a date at such a place. There is no formal defence required to that in the sense that the defendant does not have to set out his grounds for defence in a reply to that document. On that document the parties join issue before a justice and satisfactory trial takes place.

In the Circuit Court where there is now jurisdiction of £2,000 the procedure gets somewhat more complicated. We have a civil bill in which the claim is set out in more detail and in more the type of language to which the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy M.P. Murphy, took exception and, possibly so with a lot of merit. The statement of claim in the civil bill in the Circuit Court is a more detailed legalistic document. The Circuit Court procedure requires that it be answered by a defence which is also a detailed legalistic document. In between those two documents there may be a notice for particulars and replies which can be comprehensive and have the effect of slowing up procedures. Nevertheless, it is a fairly simple procedure and one which does not cause much delay.

Next we move to the High Court. Deputy O'Malley has already graphically described the paper jungle that has to be fought through by litigants and practitioners in order to reach the court. It does seem an odd situation that what is permissible for one court should not, by and large, be the norm in all the courts. The theory behind the more intricate pleadings in the High Court is that these pleadings define and isolate the issues in advance of the hearing. In effect, they should make the hearing quicker and simpler and should obviate the need for witnesses to have to prove a lot of things which have been admitted previously in the documents. This may be the theory but in practice it has not worked out like that and these complicated pleadings have, regrettably, only had the effect of slowing up procedure.

While the changes coming as a result of the report of the Committee on Court Practice and Procedure on the jurisdiction of the Master will I hope ease that position, I am doubtful, and I share Deputy O'Malley's concern in this, as to whether they will go far enough. The time has come when we will have to look at the present pleadings in detail to see if they can be considerably curtailed. I do not see that the justice of the matter or the efficiency of the court going to deal with the case demands that the intricate, technical and legalistic pleadings which presently obtain need to be continued. This is a subject on which there are conflicting views and these views will have to be heard and a decision arrived at.

Mention was made by Deputy O'Malley of the question of maintaining juries in the High Court in civil actions. As Deputy O'Malley has pointed out, they have been abolished in the Circuit Court and judges are now giving judgement in cases involving amounts which up to a short time ago were reserved for the High Court where they would have had to be given by juries. If you like, as a matter of logic that argument seems to defeat the argument that a judge is necessary in order that justice be done where the amounts are large.

This question of the right to trial by jury in civil matters produces heated arguments. People have very fixed views on it and underlying the opposition to the abolition of juries in these circumstances is a very proper fear that this may be the thin end of the wedge towards affecting the jury principle in criminal matters. This possibly explains a lot of the opposition to any proposed changes. It is significant that the Committee on Court Practice and Procedure, in its third interim report on jury trial in civil actions, stated:

Unless it can clearly be shown that the cause of justice would best be served by either abolishing or severely curtailing the present right to trial by jury in civil actions in the High Court there is, in our view, no case for doing so.

That committee, with its wealth of experience, decided that jury actions in civil cases in the High Court should be maintained unless it could be shown that the cause of justice would best be served by abolishing this right or severely curtailing it. There is no doubt that if the existence of this right contributes substantially to the delays in the High Court the cause of justice is not being served by maintaining it. From that point of view there is possibly an argument at this stage that, having regard to the arrears which now obtain and which did not obtain in 1965, if that knowledge was available to that committee they might have altered their opinion. Again, this is a matter where there is room for a lot of debate because there are very contrary opinions on the subject.

I believe that if the pre-trial procedures can be streamlined, and I have indicated my anxiety to do this, or changed or both and there is a sufficiency of judges they should go a long way towards eliminating the backlog without any need to look at the right to trial by jury.

I share Deputy Esmonde's point of view that if a layman's point of view is wanted in legal matters—and Deputy M.P. Murphy very properly intervened in this debate to give a layman's point of view—in assessing the amount of loss, the jury is the proper vehicle through which that point of view should be expressed. This is an argument in favour of the retention of juries in serious civil cases.

Deputy O'Malley raised the fundamental point that we maintain here following our independence the adversary system of litigation which seems to go with the common law system which we took over when we formed our own administration. I do not know that we can ever abolish this. There will always have to be some form of adversary system involving two lawyers arguing the merits of respective cases before an independent tribunal which will adjudicate on them. However, what might be more fundamental would be to have a look at the doctrine in negligence cases. Most of our civil litigation in the courts arises out of road traffic cases which are decided on the principle of fault, that is, that damages only follow if one of the parties has been negligent.

One wonders in this day and age when the motor car is the sine qua non of modern society and when people are permitted to drive potentially dangerous vehicles freely around the roads if society is being unfair in asking the people injured by this freedom to base their claim for compensation on their ability to show fault on the part of the driver, especially when this ability to show fault might be clouded in some way by technical difficulties of pleadings and the standard of advocacy available to the parties and when the technical rules of evidence can possibly cloud the real element of justice.

Perhaps the time has come when we must begin to decide whether this idea of fault should be removed from our legal system and that there should be an absolute right to compensation for injuries sustained by a citizen in the course of his ordinary daily activities in this society. How it is to be paid for, the rights to it, all these things would have to be matters for debate. However, it is a basic matter and I suppose it is brought into focus now by the injustice of the present system heightened by delays in getting that system to work, unjust and imperfect as it may be.

I welcome Deputy Andrew's praise for the presidents of the High and Circuit Courts for the jobs they have to do in very difficult circumstances. I would like to endorse his appreciation of their work, because in addition to performing the normal judicial functions of a judge they have vast administrative burdens and these are undertaken and carried out without complaint of any kind whatever.

I disagree with Deputy Andrews when he questions the propriety of a judge undertaking the inquiry into the security aspect of the State. I think a judge is a person well fitted to carry out such an inquiry. It is an inquiry of considerable importance and it requires in the persons of those who carry it out a reflection of that importance, and this is truly reflected by having a judge of the High Court as the person to lead that inquiry. I do not think it impinges in any way on judicial independence, on the constitutional propriety of the situation, by having a judge do a job for the Executive. To suggest that would be to cast doubt on the personal propriety of any individual member of the Judiciary, and I think, happily, none of us would seek to do that nor have we ever had any cause to do so.

Deputy Andrews mentioned my reference to legal aid in my speech opening the debate as a symptom that I might be inclined to put that subject on the long finger. He coupled this with what he described as the evasiveness of Deputy Fitzpatrick answering questions on my behalf when I was absent, not, as Deputy Andrews thought, out of the country but down in Templemore presenting medals for bravery to members of the Garda. There is no evasiveness in this area. It is my ambition to have a system of legal aid in civil cases. I intend to achieve that ambition and to achieve it in a realistically short time. There is no point in putting it on the long finger, because it is an urgent social necessity. I have the support in principle of the parties in the National Coalition for the introduction of this change, and I can assure Deputy Andrews that it is a change that will come. I mentioned it in my speech in the context that, having brought it in, it would be a terrible pity to find its effects nullified by the courts being clogged. It was in that context I mentioned it, not using the clogging of the courts as an excuse for postponing it but as another argument to show how urgent it was to clear the clogging of the courts.

Deputy Blaney's contribution was an odd one in the context of this Bill. He cried crocodile tears for the litigants who found themselves unable to get speedy justice because our judges were involved in the Special Criminal Court and another judge will be involved in the security inquiry. Deputy Blaney did not seem to realise that there is a public need to have the Special Criminal Court. His viewpoint on this is a bit narrow. The judges in that court are doing perhaps the most important judicial work that is being done in this country at the moment. He would be better employed using his undoubted influence among that section of the population who provide the defendants coming before that court to persuade them that their particular policy and actions are inimical to the interest of the public, whose wellbeing was being detrimentally affected by judges having to go into this court. He said it was a waste of time for judges to be in the Special Criminal Court. It may be but there is a regrettable necessity to have the Special Criminal Court. As Deputy Kelly pointed out, we must have it to remove any fear of intimidation of juries. We do not want the situation to arise here where jurymen would be not merely intimidated but, as happened in another part of the island, assassinated.

It is unfortunately necessary to have these courts to try people who are not prepared to observe the democratic rule, who are not prepared to observe the will of the majority. Deputy Blaney shamefully boasted here, on the occasion of a debate before Christmas, of his part in setting up or encouraging the organisation which provides all the people who proceed through these courts. He wanted the court abolished. He, perhaps more than anyone else in this House, could help in ending the Special Criminal Court, if he is prepared to urge these people who have been misled into certain activities contrary to the wellbeing of the State to desist from those activities and to realise that peace can only come by the acceptance of democratic rule and the will of the majority of the people. I suggest to Deputy Blaney that he has the responsibility and the opportunity of helping towards the ending of the need for this court.

He was inclined to minimise the need for an inquiry into our security situation in the context again of taking a judge away from providing speedy litigation for our citizens. He was inclined to regard the escape from Mountjoy Jail as something trivial. Of course, it was not trivial; it is serious, that people convicted of serious criminal offences against the State should be able to escape from jail. It is important to ensure that both the jails and every other aspect of security are critically examined and found to be fully effective and efficient. We know that there are people in this country whose declared aim it is to bring down this Parliament and to bring down the institutions of the State. It is essential that we who have the responsibility of maintaining and safeguarding these institutions be satisfied that that responsibility is carried out effectively. The episode in Mountjoy, which I regret very much, shows possibly a gap that highlights the need for this examination. Deputy Blaney might think it trivial. He might think, as apparently he said on the day it happened, that it was something to be regarded as meritorious. I am glad Deputy Kelly raised it at this stage, and I would like to endorse the condemnation of any attitude of satisfaction at such an escapade taking place. It is a matter for regret that people convicted of serious criminal offences should be able to escape from our jails. Their place is within those jails and the inquiry is very proper and necessary.

Deputy Andrews made reference, as did Deputy O'Malley, to the odd drafting of section 2. Deputies will recall that we had pre-1961 courts and post-1961 courts, and it was necessary to remove doubt as to the validity of appointments in relation to both courts. That is why that section had to be duplicated in apparently similar terms.

I think I have covered most of the points raised in the debate. I want to thank Deputies again for their contributions and to assure them that I share their appreciation of the injustice to which the arrears in our courts can give rise to. As I indicated in opening the debate, it is a matter I am having examined urgently. It does not permit of instant solution. If it did, I would have adopted an instant solution before now. The only quick action available to me was to increase the number of judges and that is what I am going to do. If there are any other matters of technical detail arising on the sections I shall deal with them on Comittee Stage.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take remaining stages today.

Dáil Éireann debate - Tuesday, 13 Nov 1973

Courts Bill, 1973: Second Stage.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 13 Nov 1973