I move:
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £4,300,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1988, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Justice, and of certain other services administered by that Office, and for payment of a grant-in-aid.
There are a number of items covered in the net £4.3 million being sought in this Supplementary Estimate. By far the most significant element is an additional sum of £4 million for the payment of awards by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal under the scheme of compensation for personal injuries criminally inflicted. I am glad to be seeking this extra funding because, if granted, it will clear the huge backlog of awards accepted during the past year and which are awaiting payment.
The original provision for 1988 under subhead G.I. for the payment of claims under the scheme was £1.975 million and, as I have said, the additional amount required is £4 million.
At present there is a delay of approximately one year between the date on which an applicant agrees to accept an award and the date on which he receives payment. This delay period will get much longer if the extra amount I am seeking is not granted by the House.
The reason for the current delay in making payments after the applicant has agreed the amount of the award, is that in recent years the provision for awards made in the Estimates has not been sufficient to enable payment to be made of all awards.
I think it would be useful if I gave some background information on the scheme of compensation for personal injuries criminally inflicted. The scheme, and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal who administer it, was established in 1974. It is a non-statutory scheme. Copies of the scheme were laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas in February 1974.
Under the scheme the tribunal pay ex gratia compensation in respect of personal injury where the injury is directly attributable to a crime of violence or to circumstances arising from the action of the victim in assisting or attempting to assist the prevention of crime or the saving of human life.
Due to its escalating cost to the Exchequer, the previous Government revised the scheme with effect from 1 April 1986. Prior to the amendment of the scheme, the number of applications had been steadily increasing year by year and gradually the cumulative amount of the awards being made by the tribunal outstripped the annual provision in the Estimates. As a result a time lag developed between the date of acceptance of an award by an applicant and the date by which he received payment. As I have said already, this delay has now stretched to approximately one year.
At the beginning of this month the tribunal had on hands 771 awards, totalling £3,812,000, which have been accepted and are awaiting payment. If the House agrees to the passing of this Supplementary Estimate, payment can be made in respect of all these awards thereby eliminating the present accumulation of arrears by the end of the year.
In the longer term, the situation will be eased following on from the effects of the amended scheme. Under the revised scheme, compensation may not be paid in respect of pain and suffering attributable to injuries sustained on or after 1 April 1986.
The effects of the revised scheme can already be seen in the reduction of the numbers of claims submitted to the tribunal during the past two years. In 1985, a total of 1,975 claims was submitted to the tribunal while provisional figures indicate that the figure for 1987 was 243. This reduction in the number of claims will reduce the cost of the scheme as it operated up to 1 April 1986, a cost which prompted the then Government to introduce the amended scheme.
I turn now to subhead F.1. of the Vote of the Office of the Minister for Justice. The original division under subhead F.1. for criminal legal aid was £2.2 million and the additional amount now estimated to be required is £400,000.
My Department have no effective control over the two main determinants of expenditure on criminal legal aid which are, first, the decision by the courts to grant such aid and, secondly, the cost arising from the grant of it in any particular case. The courts alone have discretion to grant criminal legal aid and it would simply not be feasible to limit the discretion without changing the statutory — perhaps even the constitutional — position. Deputies will probably be aware that there is a Supreme Court ruling to the effect that accused persons have a constitutional right to legal aid in certain circumstances.
A number of factors has contributed to the high rate of expenditure this year. These include increased recourse generally to legal aid by the courts in disposing of criminal businesss coming before them in recent years and, overall, the speedier processing of claims submitted by solicitors and counsel under the scheme.
The estimate of £2.2 million for criminal legal aid for this year was prepared in mid 1987, before it was clear that expenditure for 1987 would reach £2.4 million, which was considerably higher than any previous year. The high expenditure in 1987 was due to increased recourse to the scheme generally and this increase has been sustained in 1988. Therefore, expenditure for this year is up £200,000 only on expenditure in 1987.
I might also add that the revised allocation of £2.6 million for 1988 includes the value added tax on legal fees, which is ultimately recouped to the Exchequer, and the retention tax which is deducted from fees due, and paid directly to the Revenue Commissioners.
The final item of increased expenditure provided for in the Supplementary Estimate is the office of the Data Protection Commissioner. The Data Protection Act, 1988, which was passed by this House earlier this year, represents a very positive initiative in dealing with the implications of computer technology for personal privacy. The Act aims at protecting the privacy of individuals about whom automated data are kept by imposing certain obligations on the persons who keep or process such data and it also confers various rights on individuals, such as the right of access to automated data relating to them.
The Act will be brought into force when the registration machinery which it provides for is in full operation and data controllers and data processors have had time to adjust their data processing procedures to the requirements of the legislation. The operative date is expected to be not later than next April. Responsibility for implementing and enforcing the Act is in the hands of the Data Protection Commissioner appointed by the Government. The provision of a figure of £50,000 in the Supplementary Estimates relates to the expenditure on the commissioner's office for this year.
In line with Government policy the staff of the commissioner's office, some of whom have already been appointed, are being provided from existing resources by redeployment while the amount of fees generated by registration will contribute significantly to defraying the other expenses of the office.
The Supplementary Estimate also takes account of a shortfall in income this year. Under subhead J. of the Vote a provision was made for Appropriations-in-aid of £620,000. The amount expected to be realised under this subhead is now estimated at £100,000 less than that figure.
Three different types of receipts are included in the Appropriations-in-aid. They are: film censorship fees; recoupment of salaries, etc. of officers on secondment, and miscellaneous.
The main variation compared with the original Estimate will arise under film censorship fees. There was a provision for £250,000 here whereas the amount that will actually be realised this year is £100,000. The provision under film censorship fees was in itself made up of two elements — first, fees in respect of cinema films and, second, fees in respect of video films. It was estimated that £100,000 would be received in respect of cinema films and £150,000 in respect of video films.
The estimated £100,000 from cinema films will be realised. In this context I should mention that fees in respect of cinema films submitted to the official censor of films were increased by 100 per cent with effect from 1 January of this year. An increase of this magnitude was necessary because the income from the fees in operation up to then was not sufficient to meet the running expenses of the Film Censor's office. There is a requirement in section 11 of the Censorship of Films Act, 1923, that fees to be charged should be arranged so as to produce as nearly as may be an annual sum sufficient to discharge the salaries and other expenses incidental to the working of the 1923 Act. The fees in operation since the beginning of this year will meet the expenses of the Film Censor's office and they also contain an element to offset previous losses in that office.
There was also a provision for £150,000 to be obtained from fees in relation to video films. These fees are being provided for under the Video Recordings Bill, 1987. However, as Deputies are aware, this Bill has not been passed yet and, accordingly, no fees from this source have accrued this year and it is now clear that no fees will accrue even if the Act is passed before the end of the year. Accordingly, these fees will not arise until 1989. Incidentally, I should mention that the video fees will come from three sources and that, as in the case of the Censorship of Films Act, 1923, the fees will be set at a level sufficient to meet all of the expenses of the expanded Film Censor's office. The three sources from which the fees will be obtained are as follows: fees in respect of licences for retail and wholesale video film outlets; fees in respect of the examination of video films by the Film Censor, and fees in respect of labels which will have to be attached to each cassette containing a video work in respect of which the censor has issued a certificate authorising its supply.
Finally, in relation to subhead J., I should mention that the shortfall of £150,000 in respect of film censorship fees is offset to the tune of £50,000 additional income which will be realised from the recoupment of salaries, etc., of officers of my Department on secondment.
While the total extra sum required on the items I have mentioned amounts to £4.55 million, savings of £250,000 are expected on pay due to staff wastage being greater than anticipated. These savings serve to reduce the amount of the Supplementary Estimate to £4,300,000.
I look forward to hearing the views of Deputies on the Supplementary Estimate. I will take note of any points they raise and, in so far as it is possible, reply to them later this evening.