Vol. 286 No. 6
I move:
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £120,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1975, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Attorney General, etc., and for the expenses of criminal prosecutions and other law charges.
Subhead B, the first subhead of this Supplementary Estimate is a subhead which provides for the cost of travel, the provision of legal books and publications and other incidental office requirements for the Attorney General, the Chief State Solicitor, the Director of Public Prosecutions, and their staff. The original Estimate subtantially underestimated the extent of the involvement in foreign travel of the legal officers in the Office of the Attorney General, particularly during the Irish Presidency of the European Communities. In addition, unexpected travel was required for appearances before the European Commission of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. Of the total sum now in the subhead £16,000 will be required in respect of travel for the ten months to 31st October last. Other factors resulting in the increase under this subhead include the increased cost of general office supplies since the Estimate was settled. Furthermore, no provision had been made for the cost of establishing a separate office for the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Under subhead E expenses provided for include expenses of witnesses for the State in civil actions; payment of costs awarded against the State, except where paid from another Vote; expenses of juries, local state Solicitors' costs for official business; payments for reports of judgment, transcripts of evidence, copies of summonses, and certificates of convictions; fees to State pathologists and conveyance of articles for analysis, and so forth. Expenditure under this subhead fluctuates considerably and is influenced by a number of factors, including, of course, the number and expensiveness of court cases falling to be dealt with in any particular year. In this connection the costs of one case which is included in this Supplementary Estimate amounted to £26,000 and seven other cases which, in total, cost £10,000.
In addition to normal expenditure, in 1975, two headings of expenditure arose: the payment of travelling expenses and subsistence for non-civil servants in connection with Ireland's case before the Commission on Human Rights in Strasbourg, and the appointment of a full-time state pathologist because of the growing requirements in the fields of forensic pathology. The amount allowed in this subhead in respect of the case to which I have referred is £14,000 and a sum of £10,000 is included in respect of the appointment of the pathologist. The remaining £15,000 arises from increases in litigation generally, particularly is prosecutions, and a general increase in the costs associated with litigation—witnesses' expenses, juries; and office-type expenses incurred by state solicitors.
Subhead H is a new subhead. No financial provision was made in the original estimate for the costs of the Law Reform Commission in 1975. The Law Reform Commission Act, 1975 provides for meeting the expenses of the commission out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas. The Law Reform Commission was formally established on the 20th October last. The grant of £30,000 is made up of two major items (a) remuneration for members of the commission and £25,000 towards the rent and fitting out expenses of office accommodation for the commission. I should take this opportunity to inform the House that the commission's view was that, notwithstanding the fact that it had not yet recruited a research immediately into areas of the law which might require reform. After consultation with the commission, I have requested the commission under the provisions of subsection (2) (c) of section 4 of the Act to undertake the examination of two topics—the law relating to the domicile of married women and the law relating to the age of majority. This work can be carried on at the same time as the commission is preparing a comprehensive programme of law reform and will not interfere with the commission's responsibilities under the programme of law reform which will eventually be adopted.
One very disturbing fact emerges from the Attorney General's speech. It is that the Book of Estimates for the present year is nothing more than a joke. It appears that the Attorney General, like his colleagues in Government, has willingly and knowingly cooked the books. We would like the Book of Estimates to be what it always was. The Attorney General failed to put forward realistic projections of expenditure for the present year. I am amazed, and I am sure the public at large are amazed, by the Government, coming in here almost daily with colossal Supplementary Estimates. How is it that the forecasting which was required for the Book of Estimates was so far off the mark? Why were there so many mistakes and so many projections which were 3, 4 and 5 per cent out? It is not good enough for the Attorney General or anybody else to come here and read a very short brief, in some cases asking that it be passed without discussion. This is not good enough.
Is the Book of Estimates, which should be published prior to the budget in a couple of weeks' time, to be treated like Aesop's fairy tables? Is it to be a haphazard effort by the Minister for Finance and the Government to hoodwink the general public with regard to the expenditure which has to be met? The Government are in a very bad way at present with regard to the finances of the nation. I know educational matters are coming up next. It is a sad day when the Minister for Education has to come in here and show cuts in areas where there should be no cuts in expenditure. I have no doubt we will have ample time to have a discussion on educational matters before the day is out.
That is so.
It is a hollow laugh and so well it should be.
We are admiring the Deputy's dexterity.
Aesop's fairy tables is a new one. Fables.
The Minister is so smart he is still passing himself out. That is his biggest problem. I told him that a long time ago. I will tell him more if he wants me to.
The Deputy also accused me of telling a lie.
And the Minister did lie in this House.
The Deputy has not withdrawn it yet either.
The Minister has the cheek of Old Nick and if he wants me to tell him more about lies told in this House I will tell him. He is the one man I know who lied in this House.
No Member of this House may attribute to another that he told a deliberate untruth or lie.
I withdraw that charge and say that the Minister for Education deliberately refused to tell me the truth and misled me and the House.
If I may get back to the law charges, under the heading Travelling and Incidental Expenses the April/December, 1974 figure was a total of £2,760 and the Estimate for 1975 was in line with this figure; it was £4,500. We now find an additional sum requested under this heading of £15,000. The £15,000 is made up of £6,900 in relation to the Attorney General and his staff, £3,200 in relation to the Chief State Solicitor's Office and £4,900 in relation to the Director of Public Prosecutions and his staff. In regard to the latter figure of £4,900 for the Director of Public Prosecutions and his staff, I would like to know more about the incurring of travelling or incidental expenses by the Director and his staff. I think a more detailed explanation is required before it would be acceptable.
In regard to the additional £2,400 for the Attorney General and his staff, it seems scarcely credible that an under-estimation of this kind could have taken place if any consideration had been given to what the Attorney General and his staff might have to do in the course of the year. It appears that there was a high degree of carelessness in this regard. So far as our information goes, neither the Attorney General nor his staff did anything that would incur travelling or incidental expenses to any great extent out of line with the 1974 figure. Further explanation is required here. In respect of the Chief State Solicitor's Office the additional sum required for travelling and incidental expenses is £3,200. If the travelling and incidental expenses of the Attorney General's office and the Chief State Solicitor's office are inter-connected, then it should be shown why the expenses were not properly anticipated because together they come to an additional figure of £10,000.
Under the general law expenses the additional sum required is £75,000. The figure for April/December, 1974 was £26,650 and the Estimate for 1975 was £43,000 which would be more or less in line with the previous figure. It is difficult to see what could have caused an increase of £75,000. The ingredients of this heading are expenses for juries, fees to pathologist, payments to witnesses in civil actions and miscellaneous expenses. We are told by the Attorney General that we have a pathologist appointed at £10,000 a year and one court case, as he said, had costs running to somewhere in the region of £14,000. In general, in regard to the two items I have mentioned, that have been dealt with, it may be relevant to inquire whether in the setting up of two offices, that is to say, the expansion of the Attorney General's office and the setting up of a new and heavily-staffed office for the Director of Public Prosecutions, whether we are already operating Parkinson's Law to this extraordinary extent and whether the fact that these two offices are now in existence is to some extent due to what has occured in this regard.
The other additional figure is a sum of £30,000 in relation to the Law Reform Commission. It is understandable that the commission should have been set up and that the remuneration to date of members might be covered by the figure of £5,000 or remuneration for the remainder of the financial year might be covered by that figure but the other expenses of £25,000 should, I believe, be explained in great detail. There is a sum of £25,000 provided towards the rent and setting up expenses of office accommodation for the commission. It is quite an expensive office for a small number of people. If expenses of this kind have been incurred at this juncture, it would appear that the office is already in operation. Are they ready to go into operation? It is a great expense to the taxpayers of this country.
If this is a reasonable deduction from the seeking of a sum of money of this magnitude in relation to the Law Reform Commission, it is relevant to ask what tasks have been undertaken up to the present. How many meetings have they had? What topics have they placed on the priority list for law reform consideration? When may we know what their priorities are? When may we expect their first reports? Will their first reports relate to reforms which are vitally necessary on the civil side or to reforms which are equally vitally necessary on the criminal side in relation to the very real, day-to-day problems affecting the business of the courts?
Much more information should be given. The Attorney General and everybody involved in the preparation of the Book of Estimates—and it is the job of the Government, lorded over by the Minister for Finance— must be charged with gross neglect in the way they come here almost daily, sometimes hourly, queueing up with Supplementary Estimates for colossal sums of money. Inflation is one thing and the Government should know as much as, if not more than, anybody else about inflation because of their responsibility for it and encouragement of it in many instances. The figures we are asked to accept now go beyond any figure that should be allowed for inflation. The Government must be taken to task for this. For that reason, I am not accepting the Supplementary Estimate of the Attorney General and I am asking that the matter be voted on.
On a point of order, may I ask if the document the Attorney General quoted this morning was circulated to Members of the House?
I did not catch the question.
The Deputy asked if the Attorney General's speech was circulated to Members.
I thought it was given to the spokesman on law charges. I am sorry if it has not been given.
One carbon copy was given to me. The Deputy is asking if copies were circulated to Members of the House.
No, because I understand that in matters of this sort what was usually done was to give it to the spokesman.
That is a very wrong understanding. It is the Attorney General's responsibility to circulate these documents to all Members of the House.
I think that these Estimates are coming so quickly that the printers cannot keep up and I want to lodge a protest against discourtesy from the Government benches in not providing Members with copies of the brief.
No discourtesy was intended. As I understand it, the practice of the House is that when a Minister or somebody in my position is introducing an estimate of this sort and if he has a written speech he gives it to the spokesman on that matter. I can assure the Deputy that no discourtesy was intended.
Deputy Collins criticised the fact that the Government were requiring a Supplementary Estimate and he criticised the estimating ability of the Government in this connection. I did explain that in estimating costs which have to be met out of the Exchequer in the coming year a number of matters must of necessity be conjectural. I should point out that the difficulties in this connection should be well-known. The present Opposition when in Government in the 1971-72 financial year had to bring in a Supplementary Estimate amounting to £79,000, the original estimate being £362,000. In 1972-73 they had to bring in a Supplementary Estimate of £50,000. There was also a Supplementary Estimate in 1973-74. The point I wish to make is that it has proved over the years difficult to estimate what expenses would have to be met out of this Vote because of the very nature of these expenses. One of them, as I pointed out, was in fact costs in relation to an action which had been heard some time previously and the amount of which had not been known.
On the matters of detail being raised by Deputy Collins, I should explain that under subhead B, a number of matters which I outlined fall to be considered and that the travelling expenses in relation to this subhead now are mainly in relation to travelling expenses involved in offices in the office of the Attorney General and not in relation to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The matters that come for consideration in relation to his office are matters relating to the expense of establishing it, not travel expenses.
I did explain that what occurred this year is that there were very abnormal and unexpected travel commitments of the officers of the Office of the Attorney General. These arose partly because of the Presidency and also because of commitments the officers of my Department had in relation to the Strasbourg case and also in relation to cases before the European Court of Justice. and it was not possible to anticipate the extent of the payments that would be made under these headings.
In relation to subhead E I have already explained to the House that this does include these matters which are very difficult to anticipate, particularly in relation to the costs that may be involved in respect of which Exchequer grants would be required. I have also explained that under subhead E there have been, unexpectedly, sums required in relation to costs in connection with the Strasbourg case. This explains to a considerable extent the reasons for this Supplementary Estimate.
On subhead H, the position is that the office accommodation is nearly available to the Law Reform Commission and it is hoped that they will be able to take up occupation within the next couple of weeks. I can assure Deputies that the expenditure involved in establishing an office is not by any means unusual and no great luxurious appointments are involved. Deputies, I am sure, can take a look at it themselves if they wish to do so.
On the question of the Law Reform Commission's programme, the position is that the Law Reform Commission have the task of preparing a programme and they are involved in this task at the present time and I know it is hoped that a programme will be prepared very soon. This programme would indicate the areas of priority in which research would be undertaken and reform introduced. In the meantime, as I have already indicated to the House, the commission have indicated their willingness to undertake immediately the research into two topics which I have referred to already.
Can the Attorney General say whether the sum of £25,000 for office accommodation for the commission is a once for all job or will it be an annual cost?
It is mainly a once for all job in relation to the appointment of the office. I am not absolutely certain but I can find out for the Deputy, if he wishes, the extent of the rent that is involved.
I would wish it.
