Supplementary Estimates, 1989 (Resumed). - Vote 13: Office of the Attorney General. – Dáil Éireann (26th Dáil) – Tuesday, 12 Dec 1989

Supplementary Estimates, 1989 (Resumed). - Vote 13: Office of the Attorney General.

Minister for Finance (Mr. A. Reynolds)

I move:

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £214,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1989, for salaries and expenses of the Office of the Attorney General including a grant-in-aid.

The Supplementarty Estimate I am moving today for the office of the Attorney General requires an additional sum of £14,000 for the travelling and incidental expenses subhead which provides for the office expenses, subsistence, travelling and other incidental payments of both the Attorney General's Office and the Chief State Solicitor's Office. An additional sum of £200,000 for the counsel's fees subhead which provides for the payment of all fees due to counsel engaged on behalf of the Attorney General.

Expenditure on counsels' fees to date has been higher than anticipated at the beginning of the year and the additional sum of £200,000 will be required to fund this subhead to year end. The volume of expenditure reflects a high throughput of cases through the courts and also the large volumes of litigation, mainly against the State, being handled by the Attorney General's office. The volume of litigation cannot be known in advance and it is very difficult to forecast expenditure under this subhead with accuracy. However, Deputies should note that, even including the additional amount of £200,000, total expenditure on this subhead in 1989, at £790,000, will still be significantly less than the 1988 outturn figure of £1,070,000.

The excess on incidental expenses is largely attributable to the cost of security at the office of the Chief State Solicitor which is £55,000 per annum. These costs were formerly shared with the Revenue Commissioners. However, as a number of the Revenue staff vacated this building earlier in the year, a greater than anticipated proportion of the cost will now have to be borne by the Attorney General's Vote in 1989.

Mr. J. O'Keeffe

I should like to mention that Deputy Enright asked me to share some of my time with him and I am willing to do so.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy O'Keeffe will have five minutes.

Mr. J. O'Keeffe

We will not be opposing the Estimate but I should like to make two points in relation to it. My first point relates to the need, as I see it, for an overall review of the legal services provided by the State. I note that we are providing a total of £790,000 for fees to counsel under the Vote for the Attorney General's office. Last week we dealt with a Vote for the Director of Public Prosecution's office which, essentially, was to increase the amount for counsels' fees to about £1.2 million. That makes a total of about £2 million for counsels' fees between the two offices. I am not objecting to the barristers being paid their proper entitlements but I wonder whether the time is now right for the State to look at the way legal services are delivered by the State and whether the State is getting full value for the substantial sums of money being paid out.

That point was highlighted last week where a rape charge was struck out by a district justice because the book of evidence was not ready. I am not pointing the finger at anybody but that case brings home to us the need to have our offices, be they the Director of Public Prosecution's office, the Chief State Solicitor's office or the Attorney General's office, functioning properly. I do not know if it was in relation to the case of last week, the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions was overworked, but overall there is an onus on the Minister for Finance to make sure that the very substantial sums of money being expended are being spent in a cost effective manner, and if there are problems in the Office of the Attorney General or the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, he should carry out an efficiency audit. It might conceivably be a better bet to increase the number of staff in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions rather than to expend the kind of money we are talking about in this Supplementary Estimate and in the Supplementary Estimate for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions which we discussed last week.

The second point I want to make on this Supplementary Estimate relates to the Law Reform Commission. I am saddened that the need to expend some more money on law reform is not being taken on board. We need to establish a separate criminal law reform commission because of the need to reform, revise and codify our criminal code. I hope the Minister for Finance will be sympathetic to the case being made in that regard. The allocation for the existing Law Reform Commission is around one third of £1 million, and I think he has to give sympathetic consideration to the case being made for a separate subhead for a criminal law reform commission in the very near future. I cede to my colleague, Deputy Enright who has a couple of points to make.

——and the House agreed to give the Deputy two minutes presuming he would be relevant. He has not acknowledged that. I call on Deputy Taylor.

Mr. Enright

I do not want to intrude into Deputy Taylor's time and I give way but I feel what I have to say is relevant and needs to be said.

Mr. Taylor

The Minister in introducing the Supplementary Estimate referred to large volumes of litigation, mainly against the State. That is right and it has been an increasing phenomenon in recent years. This is a source of concern and is exhausting inordinate amounts of public funds and it has grown by leaps and bounds. If we look at the reports of the Law Reform Commission, the High Court and Supreme Court, we can see the amount of time and expense being spent on litigation against the State. It is time we sat back and looked at what is going on. It is correct to say that some of this litigation is unavoidable but a great deal of it could be avoidable with a measure of forethought and care. If Ministers and civil servants were prepared on occasion to listen a bit more carefully and pay more attention to the combined wisdom of this House instead of relying all the time as they, unfortunately, all too often tend to do on the more narrow base of a few civil servants in their Departments, a great deal of public money on litigation against the State might be saved.

Let me give the example of road traffic summonses. In connection with this matter a Bill was brought in and rushed through to try to remedy a defect which had appeared in the summonses procedure. I and other Deputies came into this House and pointed out that we had reservations that this Bill would meet the needs of the situation, but we were told, following the usual nod across the stairway, that, on the best possible advice of the Attorney General's office and the officials, everything would be okay and that they had checked it out. They may have checked it out and they may have thought they had the best possible advice, but when the matter came back to the High Court and the Supreme Court it turned out that our fears as expressed in this House on that occasion were well founded and that he did not have the best possible advice. They just were not prepared to listen.

It would be a tremendous help and could be a big saving on public funds if Ministers and their officials would on occasion listen to the contributions made, with the best intentions, by many Members in this House. The overall question of this increase in litigation is a matter fit for review by the Attorney General's office, because the thing is getting out of hand. Any matter that involves any trip-up seems to be ending up in the High Court and the Supreme Court. I do not know what can be done to try to deal with that, but it will build up further if it is not tackled. Henceforth care will have to be taken in Government Departments who will have to be much more responsive to representations made on legislation and will have to take more heed of Members of the House when they contribute on legislation much of which finds its way unchallenged under the Constitution in the courts. The procedures for the referral of Bills to the Supreme Court at an early stage should be availed of more because that would put legislation beyond the yea or nae of challenge in the courts on the grounds of unconstitutionality.

Deputy O'Keeffe talked about extending the Law Reform Commission and perhaps having a separate commission to deal with criminal matters, but what we really need is more notice to be taken of the existing Law Reform Commission. We should make use of the expertise already available and we should use the reports and recommendations produced by the Commission. I keep a shelf in my office where I aggregate the Commission reports. They are coming out at a spanking rate, and more power to them. The gratitude of the House is due to the commission. However, the implementation of the reports in legislation is a different matter. That is not being done perhaps because there is inadequate staff in the Attorney General's office to produce the legislation based on those reports. What is the point in spending upwards of £300,000 a year on the Law Reform Commission when the reports are left to gather dust on the shelves? Most of the reports are non-controversial and could be dealt with by this House sitting every Friday. I am sure all the Members of the House would contribute to such legislation. I have urged before that that procedure be adopted and I put it again now to the Minister for Finance who is in the House.

Mr. McCartan

I support the additional supplementary estimate in relation to the Office of the Attorney General. I accept that it is perhaps impossible to estimate accurately at the beginning of any year what will be needed so we have the practice that supplementary estimates of this kind are moved with a view to seeking the additional funds to discharge counsel and other legal fees incurred by the Office of the Attorney General at the end of each year. Last year on the debate on a similar supplementary estimate the Minister involved was helpful to this House in terms of giving some breakdown on the cases responsible for the extra expenditure in that year. The Crotty case, for instance, had consumed a lot of the previous year's litigation. The settlement of counsel fees was only resolved last year. That was an addition to the list and encumbrances of the Department and of the Office of the Attorney General. A number of other cases were referred to and we were able to comment on the need and the propriety for perhaps a broader approach by the Attorney General in terms of what should be contested and how often these issues should be contested so fully in our courts. Why have we not been afforded some information this year as to the type of cases, if not the particular cases that required this type of expenditure? I wonder how many cases, for instance, involved the extradition process that is now seen to be debated and agitated through the High and Supreme Courts by people who are wanted for the prosecution of serious crimes in other jurisdictions. How much of this extra expenditure for instance arises from garda assault cases where the Attorney General defends those cases? It seems that there is an increase in these kinds of actions in the High Court. How many of them are being fought but which would be better disposed of by way of amicable settlement before full agitation is taken on in the High Courts? The problem is that often a settlement is seen to reflect badly on the officer or officers involved, but that should not be allowed develop as a practice. If there is a case to be met, in some instances the settlement process is a better way to deal with it with no adverse reaction down the line to the member involved. How much of the extra cost here relates to the lible case involving members of the Department of Justice arising from a TV programme that sought to put a critical light on the administration of our prisons? That was a very hotly contested action and I had grave reservations about the extent to which the taxpayer should have been asked to pay for the costs involved. I understand that there was indemnity offered to the person involved before the action was launched. It was certainly close to the border line, if not on it, at the time. We are entitled to some information other than the Minister just saying that this is an overrun on expenditure.

The Attorney General operates a scheme known as the Attorney General's scheme and it allows for the payment of lawyers' fees, counsel included, for issues on the State side, issues particularly involving habeus corpus applications and extradition applications where the representative assigned by the court to represent an impecunious applicant is paid for through this scheme. There is a huge disparity between what is paid to the lawyer on the defendent's side as opposed to what is paid to the counsel or lawyer on the State side. That should be addressed. The fees paid on the impecunious applicant's side as assigned by the courts are paid on a par with the criminal legal aid scheme of District Court or High Court level.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy's five minutes are up now.

Mr. McCartan

A case was highlighted during the current year in which the solicitor involved was obliged to walk out of court and resolve matters by the end of the day. I would ask the Minister to look at this matter in consultation with the Attorney General, as something that requires attention.

Mr. A. Reynolds

I thank the Deputies for contributing to the debate. It will not be possible to deal with all the points in two minutes but in relation to Deputy O'Keeffe's question on staffing, he will recall that when the Supplementary Estimate for the Chief State Solicitor's office and for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions were being discussed, I said that where it became a good business decision to put in more solicitors and technicians, I did that. I continue to keep a very vigilant eye on overruns in costs. Despite the fact that there is an overrun here which is very difficult to estimate at the start of the year, expenditure was still £280,000 less in 1989 than it was in 1988.

On the question of how many of the cases arose out of litigation and Members' contributions not being listened to in the House, I tell Deputy Taylor most of the money I am talking about here is in regard to the general area of accidents and such cases. I am surprised Deputy Taylor made that point tonight in the House.

I have listened very attentively to Committee Stage debates of all the major legislation I have brought through the House this year and in the past couple of years. I am never slow to adopt amendments if they are reasoned amendments and will contribute to a Bill. The Deputy will recall that only in the past week or so he has been in my office with other spokespersons from various parties trying to address the very sensitive issue of disabled drivers. Information on this issue will be published tomorrow. We have gone a long way to resolve the very sensitive problems that were there. I have been open to accept amendments not alone to the Finance Bill but to the Central Bank Bill. I always listen attentively and where there is a good, reasoned amendment I will be happy at any time——

Mr. Taylor

I was not talking about the Minister personally.

Mr. A. Reynolds

In relation to the Law Reform Commission, this area is really more for the Department of Justice and I am sure the Deputies will address their remarks to that Department. I know Deputy O'Keeffe will ask if I will lend an attentive and appreciative ear to everything. The expenditure would not alone go through the roof but up to Heaven if I were to be attentive to everybody who wanted everything. However, everything gets a fair run. At the same time I will continue to hold the level of expenditure because it is in the interests of the economy that I do so.

I thank the Deputies for contributing to the debate. I think I have been as forthcoming as I possibly could be with information and I will take up the last point made by Deputy McCartan.

Vote put and agreed to.

Dáil Éireann debate - Tuesday, 12 Dec 1989

Supplementary Estimates, 1989 (Resumed). - Vote 13: Office of the Attorney General.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 12 Dec 1989