(Mayo): I move amendment No. 2:
In page 8, before section 13, to insert the following new section:
"13. -The Courts (Supplemental Provisions) Act, 1961, is hereby amended by—
(a) the insertion in section 5(2)(a) of ‘or a practising solicitor' after ‘barrister', and
(b) the insertion in section 5(2) of the following paragraph for paragraph (e) (as inserted by the Courts and Court Officers Act, 1995)
‘(e) for the purposes of paragraph (a) of this subsection, service, in the case of a solicitor as a judge of the Circuit Court, shall be deemed to be practice as a solicitor.' .".
Deputy Shatter made the case very eloquently and I thank the Minister for his response — he made a pre-emptive strike in relation to the amendment. I welcome the thrust of the Minister's remarks in view of the fact that he has shown clear intent in relation to whatever transpires in the working group report.
The case is well made. The Courts and Court Officers Act, 1995, was a watershed in that it opened up doors which had previously been locked to the solicitors' profession. The judgment of its performance by those who have benefited from the promotional opportunity has been very positive indeed. The situation opened up a huge area of potential, promise and promotion to solicitors who had the acumen, ability, training and skill to undertake higher judicial appointments. It introduced a filtering process whereby one had to have served for a period in the Circuit Court before being eligible for appointment to the High Court and, consequently, the Supreme Court. The basic thrust of my proposal is to eliminate that interim period so that where one has the ability, where one is deemed worthy of appointment, there would be no bar to going straight into the court. I make the point in the context of what Deputy Shatter said and the Minister acknowledged, that there is huge potential in terms of the expertise garnered collectively and individually by solicitors. Solicitors are very close to the ground in terms of knowing what happens in the real world — I say this with no disrespect to people at the Bar. One only has to look at the sheer numbers. There are 4,400 practising solicitors and 900 barristers. It would seem wrong to preclude these people from the possibility of being appointed at the outset in terms of their capacity to serve in the higher courts.
I make the point also that much of our law has been borrowed from Britain, our parliament is almost an exact parallel of that in the United Kingdom. Similarly our courts and court procedures are borrowed, almost en masse, from the British system. Much of the legislation and many of the Acts that determine what happens in the courts are based on what happened in the days of British jurisdiction. Rather than slavishly following the United Kingdom, we should take an initiative of our own in this House and make a quantum leap forward. I suspect from what the Minister said, although I do not know whether he has had a preview of the report, that he has had some indication that the report will go along with what I am seeking to implement by way of this amendment. Therefore, I ask that the House take the amendment on board.