Like other Deputies on all sides I welcome the fact that we have an opportunity to discuss this issue and in particular I welcome the motion to the effect that Dáil Éireann resolves that its procedure should be reformed to improve efficiency and its control over public finances. To my mind the motion is somewhat narrow and I do not believe that was intended by the Minister in proposing it. I believe it is the Minister's intention to deal with the inadequacies of the Dáil and its procedures in a general way and the general lack of control by the Dáil not merely over matters of public finance but over all aspects of Government in general. That is the issue in a nutshell.
The recent difficulites in the public finances have highlighted the impotence of the Dáil in tackling this area, its inability to deal in a realistic way with departmental Estimates, to come to terms with the financial problems of the State and to exercise any real control over annual plans produced through Ministers for Finance, through the Department of Finance in the context of general economic development and recovery. All too often in the economic area the Dáil has seen to be asked to approve matters that in many instances have already been implemented. It is often asked to approve expenditure of money already spent and in other instances it is asked to rubber stamp decisions already made and in respect of which there is no possibility of making a change. This applies not merely in the area of public finances but right across the board in the context of powers exercised by Government. My remarks are meant to refer not merely to this or the preceeding Government or to the brief term of seven months of the last Coalition Government, which was my first experience of this House, but in a general way to the control of this House to which the Government are supposed to be responsible. The fact is that this House has very little real control of the Government. I believe the Government take very lightly in many instances that responsibility. The system of checks and balances implicit in the Constitution and which is an essential integral part of any parliamentary democracy have now ceased to operate in the context of the relationship between this House and a Cabinet Government.
I think it is acknowledged by Deputies on all sides that the procedures in this House are archaic and ineffective. In real terms there is no possibility of any systematic inquiry in a general way into Government behaviour or action and no real control over Government action. There is a lack of adequate backup services to assist Deputies in the proper examination of legislation. Bills introduced in the House are effectively within the domain of the Government and jealously guarded by Government Ministers to the extent that even if Government backbenchers or Opposition Deputies propose amendments to Bills, Ministers often regard such proposals as an attack on their political virginity. The Minister who accepts an amendment from a back-bench Deputy usually regards it — and very often appears to regard it — as a suggestion of ministerial incompetence rather than, as he should, as a valid contribution by a Deputy to the legislative process.
In my brief experience in this House as a backbencher on both the Government and Opposition sides it has been clear that the vast majority of Ministers in both the preceding Governments have been loth in any circumstances to accept amendments to Bills. There are a variety of reasons for this but it is clear that Governments are not willing to regard Deputies as legislators, no matter how much Deputies wish to be so regarded, and are not willing to accept that amendments proposed by backbenchers on the Government side or from within the ranks of the Opposition are very often proposed by Deputies having an expertise or an interest in a particular area. The usual presumption of Ministers when amendments are proposed is that somewhere lurking in those amendments there lies some form of political malice or a political trap into which the Minister may fall. Whereas on occasion it is correct to say that this is the case, much of the legislation I have seen pass through this House would have gone through no matter which party were in Government. Much of that legislation is produced by civil servants and is politically non-contentious but many aspects of this legislation have been legally defective. Often Bills are legally defective simply because Ministers are not willing to consider amendments.
There are few Deputies who seek to act in a legislative capacity and they are often criticised by people outside this House for their failure so to act. I believe that criticism attaches more to Government than to Deputies. Any Deputy who has had experience in this House over a period of time will rapidly learn the futility of seeking to promote amendments on the various stages of Bills. Something may be achieved by way of publicity exercise but as a legislative exercise it is futile in the vast majority of cases. Often one sees the nonsensical spectacle of a Minister who has resolutely opposed the acceptance of an amendment in this House suddenly realising what a good amendment it is and proposing that same amendment in his own name in the Seanad. He could just as easily have accepted the amendment in this House but Ministerial purity might have been in danger if he were seen to accept advice from a backbencher or an Opposition Deputy. There is a need for Ministers to get away from that type of approach to business. They must move away from the straitjacket view of their function and their view of their self-importance.
If Members are to participate properly in the legislative process it requires not only a change of approach and of perception on the part of Ministers but also requires the provision of expert back-up facilities to Deputies. Few people outside this House are aware of the absence of necessary facilities and of the fact that no research assistance of any nature other than from the librarians in the Library is available unless Deputies are willing to employ people themselves. Until last February there was a pooling system whereby three or four Deputies had one secretary availably for their entire work, either of a constituency or a legislative nature. Deputies have been hog-tied by the physical environment here and they will continue to remain so until such time as adequate and proper facilities and research assistance are made available.
Successive Governments have acknowledged the inability of this House to tackle major issues of political and social importance and this awareness has resulted in an erosion of the importance of this House and an erosion of the function of Members. There are a large number of examples. It is acknowledged on all sides, although different members of different parties would have different approaches and different ideological stances, that reform of our taxation system is long overdue. What do we do about this? Do we set up a committee to consider it? Do we debate the matter in detail? We do neither of these things. We set up a Commission on Taxation, a body outside this House, to examine the whole area of tax and report back. What do we do when we want to look at industrial policy and industrial relations? Is there an expert committee of this House to examine that issue, make recommendations and consider what action should be taken? Of course there is not. We commission the Telesis Report and that report, produced by a body outside this House, is apparently to dictate our industrial policy. We want to examine the area of children's services and child care. It has been known for two decades that there are major deficiencies throughout this area. How are these problems dealt with? Are they debated in detail? Is a committee of Deputies appointed to recommend legislation? No, there is not. We set up the Committee on Child Care Services to report to this House. We recognise that there is a need for civil legal aid to be made available to people who cannot afford lawyers' fees. Is that issue considered by this House? No. We set up the Pringle Committee to examine the area and make recommendations.
By setting up such committees successive Governments have recognised the inability of this House and the failure of its procedures to enable Deputies to tackle the major issues of the day. That responsibility has been abdicated and passed to outside commissions who produce very often comprehensive and expert reports which subsequently languish on the shelves of Ministerial offices and are never discussed here. Two of the reports to which I have referred, the report on child care and children's services and the report of the Pringle Committee, have never been debated in this House, although one report was produced as long ago as 1976 and the other was first made available to the Minister for Health in September 1981. Neither the report of the Commission on Taxation nor the Telesis Report has been discussed and there are many other such reports. Not only is there no initial input to policy and into the development of reports into this nature by Members but ultimately when the reports are published they are not even considered or discussed here. This indicates the need to reform procedures.
Other Deputies have mentioned other inadequacies and they are worth reiterating. In real terms this House is not an independent legislature. It is a Government-dominated legislature, no matter which Government are in office, in which Government have the monopoly of legislation and there is no real possibility of the individual Deputy, be he an Independent or a backbench TD, initiating legislation of any kind. Legislation is basically dependent on the Government. In general, if a Deputy gets the opportunity to initiate a Private Members' Bill — and these are few and far between — it is a highly unusual occurrence for a Government to say that that Bill is a good idea, well drafted, that its provisions are accepted and that it will be supported and passed through the House. Ministers do not behave in that way because they would regard the acceptance of such a Bill as an attack on their ministerial responsibility and ability in the particular field to which the legislation relates.
There is a need for a major reform of procedures of this House to permit the introduction of Private Members' Bills, to enable them to be fully debated, to enable Deputies on all sides to promote Private Members' Bills in areas in which they have a particular interest and expertise. There is also a need for Ministers to accept that if a Bill is produced as a Private Member's Bill which contains valid and worthwile provisions in an area which requires legislation, it should be passed through the House and should not be greeted with the often ludicrous approach that "we agree with what is in the Bill but if the Deputy withdraws it we will produce our own Bill." Then two years later the same Minister produces an identical Bill for which he can claim responsibility at election time.
Deputies in real terms perform only one real function in this House and it is time we realised it. This is something many Members conceal from their constituents and often from themselves. All Deputies like to pretend they play a reasonable and sensible role in the legislative process. A Government Deputy feels he has to maintain an image, for members of his own party and to impress his constituents, of somebody who is making a real and vital input into the Government and the legislative programme of his party. Similarly the opposition Deputy, be he on the front or back benches, very often portrays an image of the Deputy playing a vital role in the national Parliament, in the development of legislation and in the introduction of reform. There are very few Deputies in real terms who play such a role and I will shortly illustrate the very few Ministers who also play such a role.
What most Deputies are doing in this House is role playing. This House is very much like a stage. Upon it we all play out party political antagonisms and take up party political attitudes. We play to the gallery. The press have an enormous role in the functions of this House. How many of us would contribute to debates, criticise and comment if the ladies and gentlement of the press were not there to listen and, hopefully, report? Very often it is the reports in the media that give Deputies' contributions a seemingly greater importance than they really have in the legislative process. I always feel that the activities of this House read far more interestingly and sound far more exciting, when one picks up one's Irish Times, Irish Independent or Irish Press the next day than they were in reality. That is due to the writing and entertainment skills of the journalists who report this House.
I believe the time has come when TDs need to have a look at the purpose they fulfil being Members of this House. There is a lack of perception of the importance of the Dáil and Seanad as a legislative body; there is a lack of perception that this House is independent of Government and that Government is dependent on this House, and there is a lack of perception that Deputies can and should play a role in the development and introduction of legislation and the general development of policy in the context of the wide variety of areas that are the concern of Government.
The lack of control over public finances is merely symptomatic of the Dáil's general lack of control over Government. I welcome the need to establish specialist committees of this House. When these committees are fleshed out, I am not sure what function they will really have. I am concerned that if we establish such committees they could become merely legislative window-dressing. They could make it appear that Deputies have a real role in the development of policy and legislation, while not really giving them such a role. There could be the establishment of groups of committees in which Deputies would behave and perform in the same manner as they do at present in this House and Ministers would continue to behave and perform in a similar way, jealously guarding their legislative prerogatives against attack, change or amendment from members of such committees.
Some committees of this House are said to work well — the Committee of Public Accounts, the committee concerned with the examination of statutory instruments and the committee on the EEC. Much of the work done by these committees is anonymous, their reports are often produced many years after their relevance has passed, and they are very rarely raised and discussed in this House. If we are to establish specialist committees we should appoint chairmen and the committees should sit regularly, should have power to sit in public, which should be the norm, and occasionally in private in the context of certain functions to which I will refer shortly. If these committees are to have any meaning, they must have power to interrogate Ministers and civil servants, hear at first hand representations from interested groups and publicly engage in the type of committee work which similar committees perform within the legislative process in the United States. The establishment of committees of this nature would be part and parcel of the functioning of this House and would go a long way towards restoring the system of checks and balances which is so important in a parliamentary democracy.
Again I emphasise that if these committees were established without the type of expertise and back-up services which the Members would require to form independent judgments on matters of policy and take independent views of legislative proposals, they would descend into toothless wonders and be little different from the type of function performed by the House at present. Each Deputy should be entitled to his own personal research assistant.
There are a number of different types of committee that one could propose and, indeed, to date this area has not been fully and properly thrashed out. We are familiar here with the establishment of committees to consider a single issue or a single piece of legislation. We had a committee to consider a Family Law Act, passed in 1976; a committee is to be established to deal with land, the value of land and problems of planning — very specialist areas — and one to deal with the problems of the family and marriage. When these single issue committees complete their reports they will cease to function. What we need are permanent committees with the powers which I have described, to deal with the major areas of Government. These would, within themselves, develop such expertise as is possible and would, by their functions, influence the development of governmental policy, recommend the initiation of legislation, possibly sponsor such legislation in this House on occasion and play a very serious role in the whole legislative process.
I am going to suggest a number of these committees, but they are not all-embracing. They are the type of committee which I would envisage could perform a function in the House and give Deputies a real opportunity of making a relative contribution to the legislative process. I am suggesting that we establish committees to cover a number of areas. The first would be a social affairs committee, the second an economic affairs committee, the third a foreign affairs committee and the fourth a justice and security committee. A number of others could be suggested. The intent would be that within the context of those committees considerable expertise would be developed in the areas with which the committees would be concerned. These committees would not necessarily be confined to dealing with the area of one Minister's responsibility, but could, of their very nature, embrace a number of different areas.
Let us first take the proposal for a committee on finance. All or many of the matters referred to by the Minister in the context of public finance come within the terms of a finance committee. The Minister is proposing the establishment of a committee on public expenditure. He has proposed that in future this House be given proper time to consider the Estimates and that individual discussion, examination and debate should take place on the capital programme.
It is acknowledged by everybody in this House that Estimate debates on individual departments as at present constituted are a farce. They are a waste of the time of this House and of the Minister's time, with no real relevance in the context of ministerial policy or expenditure. Very often, one is debating the Estimates of a Department six, eight or 12 months after that Department have started spending money on foot of the Estimate being debated. It is clearly acknowledged by all that Estimates should be considered in advance, as should the Government capital programme, and future public expenditure by the Government prior to budget day. The expenditure needs of the country could thus be examined in the context of the raising of finances and an input could be made by Members of this House in this area.
All of these functions, firstly, could be performed properly by a finance committee of this House, such a committee not depriving all Members of the House of the opportunity to debate these issues, but being established to develop a degree of expertise and which could question Ministers and civil servants on their proposals in these areas, receive representations or take submissions from a variety of interest groups which at present send such submissions to Deputies and Ministers and by so doing contribute to the formulation of policy and reports which in a number of instances could ultimately be debated in this House. The establishment of such a committee would develop within the House an expertise in the area of finance, financial policy and economic policy which at present does not exist. As this House functions at present, there is no possibility of Deputies developing that type of expertise.
This type of committee should have been involved in the preparing of the report published by the Commission on Taxation. This type of committee should be examining the proposals in the report prepared by the Commission on Taxation on behalf of the Members of this House. That committee, sitting in public, hearing submissions from interested groups and examining legislative policy proposals from the Ministers would greatly increase public awareness of the financial problems of the State, of the different ways of tackling those problems and free them from the secrecy in which they are often shrouded in the Department of Finance.
What function could a justice and security committee have? It could have a number of functions. They are functions which at this stage this House does not exercise at all. We are aware that the Minister has referred to this problem to some extent and that since 1976 we have had a Law Reform Commission in existence. This commission have produced a variety of reports recommending reforms in a number of different areas. I am not aware of a single debate ever taking place in this House at any stage on any report emanating from this commission. Indeed, no legislation has ever been enacted in this House on foot of a single report or recommendation from them. The Law Reform Commission reports are published, sent to the Taoiseach's Office, no doubt find their way into the inner sanctums of the Department of Justice, never again to emerge. Dáil Deputies have at no stage played any role of any nature in this area. A justice and security committee would have a specific role in examining all the reports coming from the Law Reform Commission and, where that commission do not themselves prepare draft legislation, possibly themselves prepare it. We constantly hear from Ministers that they are in favour of this, that, or the other law reform but there is no time given in the House to process such legislation, or the parliamentary draftsman is so busy he cannot draft the legislation.
A committee such as this could have a function in examining such reports if they had the proper staff, in preparing draft legislation on many of the reports which would not be politically contentious, and the chairman of such a committee could have a role in introducing such legislation. In that context, after a full Second Stage debate on such legislation in the House the Committee Stage could be taken in the committee with contributions not only by the formal members of the committee but Members of the House being entitled to appear and to contribute and to propose amendments if necessary.
We have a criminal legal aid system which is rarely discussed in the House. It is a scheme that should come within the ambit of such a committee. Each year many millions of pounds have been spent on legal aid since 1962 but at no stage has there been an examination by this House of the efficiency of the criminal legal aid scheme, the desirability to change the scheme or not. At no stage has there been a cost-benefit analysis of the scheme. Of course, there has been a report by an independent group chaired by a judge which, equally, has not been considered by this House. That is something that should be dealt with in the context of the committee I have been suggesting.
As well, we have the civil legal aid scheme. It is a wondrous administrative scheme established by the Department of Justice and funded by them, and a number of Government law centres have been opened throughout the State. That has never been discussed in the House. It has no legislative base, no legislation has been passed in relation to the scheme, no debate has taken place in the House on the scheme, but I understand there was brief debate on it in the Seanad. The Legal Aid Board have produced two reports, one of them yesterday, but the earlier report produced more than 12 months ago has not been considered in this House. This is clearly an area that could come within the ambit of this committee.
Many other matters could be dealt with by this committee, matters of a serious nature which are important to restore the checks and balances to legislative and governmental processes that are implicit in the Constitution. Functions are at present exercised by the Minister for Justice or the Government or the Garda that are never properly reviewed by the House, in respect of which the House makes no input except possibly on occasions when we ask Dáil Questions. They are matters that on occasions during the years have caused public concern, some recently. There is a need to see that the House will have a role to play in a number of those areas.
Recently we read much about the procedures applicable in regard to telephone tapping. We were told that the normal procedure is that the Commissioner or an Assistant Commissioner of the Garda would recommend to a Minister that a person's phone be tapped in certain specified circumstances and that the Minister could issue a warrant for telephone tapping on foot of that. When such tapping takes place it takes place in secret and this House would rarely if ever become aware of it; this House would never know whether it was justified or not; the House would never know the number of circumstances in which telephone tapping or a system of interception was used by the Garda in pursuit of crime; and the House has no means of knowing or controlling such, no means of knowing ever whether such use was justified in individual cases.
Clearly this is an area of law that requires reform, and I think there are very few people who have any doubt about that. Any reform in this area not only must ensure the individual's right to privacy but also that the Garda and security forces have all necessary powers to fight crime. It must also ensure that the House will be aware of the use of such facilities, the use of telephone tapping or other types of interception, and that there will be a system of checks and balances so important in preserving individual liberties.
One of the reforms needed in this area has no direct relevance to the motion before us in the context of improving the efficiency of the House, but it is directly relevant to the second reform that I will refer to. I believe it is quite clear that legislation should be introduced that would permit telephone tapping to take place only on an application by a member of the Garda to a judge of the High Court, that such tapping should be permitted only on a warrant issued by a High Court Judge in certain specified circumstances laid down in statutory legislation in compliance with the European convention that deals with this area.
In effect, such tapping would be permitted only when the Garda required it in the pursuit of serious crime. However, it is not enough merely to introduce that reform. The introduction of a High Court judge to the process would insure a degree of independence from Government that is essential in this area. It would ensure a degree of checks and balances necessary in this area. However, such a reform is not sufficient because there would be no knowledge on the part of this House whether such application to the High Court judge was ever justified or necessary, and Members of the House would never know to what extent such procedures were being used by the Garda.
Therefore the justice and security committee of the House I am proposing would have a very clear role. I believe if the first reform was introduced it should be incumbent on the Garda Commissioner to make an annual report to the committee in regard to the number of instances such applications were made to the judge for telephone tapping, the number of prosecutions that were brought against individuals whose telephones were tapped, and as to the success of such prosecutions. It is important that it would be seen that there would be some co-relation between tapping and the success of the fight against crime, and it is important that it would be seen that there would be some control by the House. Merely abdicating the function by sending it from the Garda Commissioner and a Minister who at present exercise it and in that sense are all powerful, to the Garda Commissioner and a judge would not afford us a system of checks and balances. However, without that suggested committee system, the judicial approach would be preferable because it would be politically neutral. However, that does not satisfy the need for checks and balances.
That is why I suggest that such a committee, which normally would sit in public, would be given the right to sit in private. I suggest that members of the justice and security committee should be fully covered by the Official Secrets Act in the context of matters that are of concern to the security of the State and in the fight against crime. That committee should be entitled to take evidence in private and receive reports in private from the Garda Commissioner. It should be open to members of such a committee to have made known to them the names of persons whose telephones are being tapped, or who are being bugged in other ways so that the system of checks and balances is available to ensure that these powers are being fully and properly exercised. This is an area from which this House has steered clear for far too long. It has been recognised in many countries, particularly in the United States, that if one moves away from the system of checks and balances required, if the Legislature abdicates its role over an area of civil liberties, an area in which fast developing technology is now streets ahead of present legislation, not only does the Legislature become irrelevant but civil liberties are seriously eroded.
That is a very serious function that such a committee should perform. In this context also such a committee should and would obviously report annually to Members of this House as to the number of occasions on which telephone tapping has been engaged in and the number of prosecutions brought subsequently against people whose telephones have been tapped and the success or otherwise of such prosecutions. Obviously it would not be acceptable for such a committee to publish names of people whose telephones have been tapped but they should have that information available to them. In certain circumstances they should be able to act on information if they believe that telephones have been tapped in circumstances in which positively they should not have been.
Another serious function this committee could perform is in another area that on occasion gives rise to great public concern and which at present effectively is the preserve of Government. I am referring in particular to the question of judicial appointments. We are fortunate in this country to have an independent Judiciary who serve the country well, who serve us well in our courts and who are seen generally by the public to be independent once they are sitting on the bench. But there is always great concern expressed about the manner of judicial appointments. At present judges are appointed by the President effectively on the advice of the Minister for Justice. In real terms the appointments are made by the Government and Minister for Justice of the day. It is fair and accurate to say that different Governments and different parties have and do appoint members to the District Court, Circuit Court, High Court and Supreme Court, very often, who have had in the course of their legal careers, prior to their elevation to the bench, connections with the party in Government when they are appointed. In some way they may have been involved in politics, be it simply by advising Deputies, Governments or by having connections with individual Ministers, affiliations to particular parties, or perhaps having been failed Dáil candidates on some occasions. In fairness to all Members of the Judiciary it is also true to say that one never comes across members of the Judiciary betraying their independence when on the bench. Indeed many judges who have been appointed by Fianna Fáil Governments have made judgments of a constitutional nature and otherwise against Fianna Fáil Governments with which I am sure the Fianna Fáil Government of the day have been unhappy. Indeed many judges appointed by Coalition Governments have subsequently delivered court decisions with which probably Coalition Governments have been unhappy. I would not suggest that our judges, once elevated to the bench, have not acted independently; they have and no doubt will continue to do so.
However, there are two areas of concern in that regard, The first is that Governments when going out of office, often with indecent haste, appoint people to the bench, be it to the District Court, Circuit Court, High Court or Supreme Court. Often in the dying days of Governments any posts needing to be filled are filled. It is fair to say that whilst our judges preserve their independence very few lawyers would disagree with the comment that some people who have been appointed to the bench in the past have not had the ability for that appointment. As a practising lawyer I have no doubt I will not be thanked by members of the Judiciary for making that comment but it is a reality. All practising lawyers know it to be a reality, as also do many Members of this House.
There is a need for this House to play a role in finalising or confirming in some way judicial appointments proposed by Government. It is a function exercised in the United States by Congress. It is a function I believe we should take on ourselves. If the Government have a proposal for somebody to be appointed to the Judiciary that person should have to come before the Justice Committee of this House for the purpose of being questioned by Members of this House so that Members might satisfy themselves that that prospective appointee has the ability to sit on the bench be it in the District, Circuit or High Court. Such a procedure also would prevent governments appointing people to the bench in their dying days in office after they have lost an election because, if this House was not sitting and if such confirmation was necessary, it would not be possible for such appointments to take place. This House has a responsibility to ensure that persons appointed to the Judiciary have the ability to carry out their roles. I might emphasise, in making that comment that one must pay tribute to the Judiciary we have at present, to those people who have served us well in our various courts. But I see no reason that such judicial appointments should be the sole prerogative of Government Ministers without any Member of this House having a contribution to make.
The same could be said about promotions the Governments can make in the Garda. I believe this House should have some role to play there to ensure that the political independence of the Garda is preserved at all times, in turn to ensure that persons appointed — be it to the post of Commissioner or other high-ranking office — are appropriate people to hold such appointments. The very fact that appointments could be vetted by such a committee before becoming law would prevent Ministers in different Governments from ever appointing a member of the Garda to a higher office than was appropriate for such a member. Again, for far too long, this House has had no function in any of these areas.
I referred to the establishment of a social affairs committee. There are a number of functions such a committee could perform. I believe the establishment of such a committee is as urgent as is a committee to deal with finance. Whereas the recent budgetary difficulties and problems encountered in the context of Government Estimates have underlined the inability and failure of this House to tackle fully problems of public finances and to control a government or governments who are unwilling to deal realistically with economic problems, the abysmal record of this House on social affairs is a clear indication of the need for new forms of procedure to enable this House to deal with these areas. In vast areas of what I would describe as social affairs this House has abdicated its function to the courts, has failed to tackle areas of major social importance, sometimes due to political cowardice and at other times due to simple ignorance of the existence of problems.
If one looks at the vast number of social areas in which new policies or new legislation was forced in recent years by judicial constitutional pronouncements rather than emerging from the legislative chambers of the Dáil or Seanad one will see clearly the dismal failure of the Houses. I should like to list some of those areas. The problems relating to family planning were never tackled fully or properly disposed of, or even dealt with in this House until the courts through a constitutional action struck out an old piece of legislation and set out clearly what the law should be. The whole area of rent restriction, where there were massive problems for landlords and tenants going back many years — Members with any knowledge of constituency work would have been aware of them — was never properly tackled by the House until judicial constitutional pronouncements were made in a court case. The gross inequity in the taxation system in so far as a married couple could be required to pay a greater sum by way of income tax than two single people living together was well known to Members before I was elected to the House but nothing was done about it. That was only reformed as a result of a constitutional case and the courts striking down aspects of our Income Tax Acts as being repugnant to the Constitution.
In the adoption area until 1974 couples of mixed religion were prohibited by our laws from adopting and an orphaned child born to a couple of mixed religion could not be adopted. That was creating problems where couples who were suitable adopters were refused children and children who could be adopted were kept in institutions but it was not tackled until a constitutional case was brought before the courts. We continue to have such problems. There are massive problems in the area of family law which I do not intend to go into in any detail today because it is not appropriate to this debate. However, it would be appropriate to raise such matters at meetings of the justice committee I have suggested. One area where law and social reality are vastly different is in regard to our nullity laws. Hundreds of couples have obtained Church Annulments but they do not have any chance of obtaining a civil decree of annulment. What is happening? The Judges are developing the law because they realise that our law which goes back to the last century is inadequate. To some extent, in so far as is possible, the Judiciary have stepped in and the law is being changed in a piecemeal fashion to fit into modern social realities. That is one of the areas that could be dealt with by a committee dealing with family and marital problems.
Another problem I should like to deal with is the subject of a report produced by the Attorney General in 1976 with comprehensive recommendations for reform but it has not been considered by the House yet. The committee I have suggested not only need to involve themselves in legislation but to examine the efficiency of many of the existing schemes in the area of social affairs which I take to include social affairs and matters of health which are interwoven. Our health service costs the country millions of pounds and while it provides many worthwhile and essential services the cost effectiveness of that service has never been examined to see if some things could be done in a more efficient way for the benefit of those who use the service. We have never examined the service to see if some things could be done in a more cost-effective way. The House has not had any function in examining that matter. We have had reports produced by Governments in the areas of social affairs and health but we have never considered matters of great public concern and I find that astonishing. During last summer the Minister for Health produced a report about the circumstances which gave rise to two children dying at the hands of their parents and the parents being successfully prosecuted through the courts. That report, to some extent, referred to failures on the part of Department of Health officials or officials from the Eastern Health Board and, to another extent, it emerged that there had been a major failure in that area. A report of that nature in similar circumstances coming before the Westminster Parliament many years ago provoked enormous public response and led to lengthy debates in the House of Commons. As a result of those debates legislation was produced but we produce reports like that by way of Government press release and they are never discussed or debated in the House with the result that one never knows whether problems are being tackled in a proper manner.
