I doubt if it was as brief as this one. I do not have a recollection of this half page with which we have been circulated. However, that is a minor point. The Seanad has the opportunity to make its contribution in looking at the Appropriation Bill. Obviously each of us will decide on our priorities and choose the issues that we want to highlight.
I would like to refer to the provision made in the Estimate for the Department of Justice, a very small provision but, nevertheless, there is some provision made in relation to the report of the Pringle Committee on Civil Legal Aid and Advice. The reason why I choose this first of all the matters that we might discuss is because tomorrow is the anniversary of the presentation by the Pringle Committee of their report to the Government. Twelve long months will have passed since the Pringle Committee presented their very urgent, serious and important report to the Government. The Government have been failing very seriously in their responsibility by not even defining their position. It is not that there is not a draft Bill or that there is not a Bill actually laid before the Dáil and Seanad; it is that the Government have not even defined their position on the urgent recommendations made by this very serious, responsible committee established by Senator Cooney when he was Minister for Justice. This is a reflection on the kinds of priorities which this Government have been setting. In the manifesto which Fianna Fáil put before the people they promised a number of things. Among those things were reforms in the area of family law and reforms in the area of provision of legal aid which were couched in very general language. When one looks at them now the promises are not as specific as they might have seemed. At the time they created an expectation that this would be an important part of the Government's programme. In relation to some specific items there was a commitment given that certain legislation, which was referred to earlier in this House today, to legalise the availability of contraceptives would be introduced within 12 months.
The provision of civil legal aid is central to the creation of social justice and access to legal remedies in Ireland. It is of an importance that is commensurate with the provision of medical services and access to medical services. We have to see the whole question of civil legal aid in that context. If anybody were to suggest now in Ireland at the end of 1978, going into 1979, there would not be access to medical services, that we would abolish the medical card, that we would abolish entitlements to medical care and hospital care and let everybody pay for any health services or any professional attention which he got, it would be regarded as barbaric and as a step back into the stone age. Yet we have not got out of the stone age when it comes to the provision of legal services. The hardship, misery and social problems that are caused or aggravated are certainly not resolved, because people cannot get access to legal advice and services. They are a continuing feature of our situation.
When the Pringle Committee were established in 1974, well over four years ago, they were established because the way in which we would provide a system of legal aid and advice was a complex matter. I fully agree that it is complex. It requires serious examination and requires the knitting in of an appropriate system to our own legal structures and to our own resources as a community. It was both an appropriate and important step for the then Government to establish the Pringle Committee. I criticised the length of time they took. One is always more impatient when the subject matter of a committee is a matter of deep and urgent social concern. I criticised the length of time it took the committee to bring out this report. They did report and the report is a very substantial, thoughtful and considerate document. The report made it clear that the committee had been requested to recommend an interim scheme if it was not possible to implement the full scheme for civil legal aid and advice. It is clear on reading the report that the committee felt that the full scheme is the desirable approach. But the committee, because of the urgency of the situation, because of submissions they received, because of the need in the community, because of the absence of equal access to legal remedies, because of the hardship caused to citizens and in particular vulnerable citizens—so many dependent wives, so many separated spouses, so many people who have severe landlord and tenant problems, who have a desperate need for this kind of advice and service, consumers who are inadequately protected—stressed the urgency of bringing in an appropriate scheme. They spelt out the kind of approach there should be. They spelt out the establishment of the legal aid board, set out the need for a network of full-time community law centres and presented this report, which had worked out the whole system, to the Government a year ago tomorrow.
We had a debate in the early part of this year on the whole subject of legal aid and the need for family courts. The Minister at that time, although he was aware of the detailed recommendations of the Pringle Committee, did not want to make any specific comment or commitment because the report had not been published. The report was published on St. Patrick's weekend—one of these non-weekends that happen—and was released at that time. Ultimately it got full coverage in the newspapers and received very widespread support for the importance of the framework that was to be established. It received criticism about the structure, minor criticisms in comparison to the very widely felt and shared knowledge and belief that there is a critical need and that, until we have provided a system of civil legal aid, we do not have even the beginnings of social justice. We do not have equality before the courts or before the law. We have no right to hold our heads up in an international context and we are failing the most vulnerable sections of our community who are most in need.
The Minister should try at least to explain to the House why a full year has passed without this Government, with their unprecedented majority defining their position on the recommendations or establishing the grounds on which they would be prepared to implement a scheme. This is particularly unacceptable because of the kinds of broad hints and half promises which the Minister for Justice gave in this House when the debate took place last March. It looked as though decisions could be imminent. This is particularly serious when we have the young population that we have and the expectations of that population. In a situation where there is already too much violence and a propensity to seek that kind of remedy to the particular problems we call for respect for the law, for our system of courts and for our administration of justice and there is a very serious onus on the Government to make it clear that access to legal services and to the courts and to remedies in those courts is a central part of the system of law and legal administration in Ireland. I feel so strongly about this absence that I have chosen to begin by highlighting that particular failure by the Government and I have asked the Minister for a specific explanation of why there has not been an official adoption of the Government position within a year of the Pringle Report being submitted.
For the sake of the logical structure of my contribution I will go on commenting on the estimates and area of jurisdiction of the Department of Justice. This brings me logically on to the area of family law, the law relating to children and to adoption. Once again, the promises were there and there was a specific reference in the manifesto to the importance of simplified and acceptable procedures for dealing with our law relating to children and the whole area of family law. This section of the manifesto also lies either abandoned or idle, certainly low down in the order of priorities. We do not have any significant proposals for the urgent reform in the law relating to children that we so badly need. We still have the predominant Act, being an old Act of the British Parliament, the Children's Act of 1908. The only innovation in Government policy is the provision of a prison for children by the opening of Loughan House as a detention centre for children from the age of 12 to under the age of 16 so that they could be detained in the custody and care of prison officers.
Lest I be misunderstood, as I have been before, I would like to make it very clear that my criticism of that proposal and its implementation is in no way a reflection or a slur directly or indirectly on the prison officers themselves, on their role and work and on their need for training in the work that they do. I accept all of that without any qualification. The Government have run away from one of the primary problems of our society and have come up with a cheap political answer to the increasing incidents of discontent, violence, vandalism and subculture in inner city areas and in certain parts of other areas which are not in the inner part of our cities but which reflect the same cycle of deprivation and poverty.
I have heard it said that those who opposed, and who continue to oppose, Loughan House are soft-centred liberals who will not face up to the realities of society. My answer to that would be that Loughan House is the "soft" in the sense of a dishonest answer to the problem. It is not an answer, it is not even beginning to cope with the dimensions of the problem. The real answer is to look very deeply at what is happening in our cities, to look at the way in which they are developing, to look at the lack of any kinds of opportunities or access to education, training or jobs for these centre city kids and to appreciate that the only way in which we can begin to cope is by having a far better sense of where our priorities should be and that it must hurt. It must hurt because we have to be prepared, as a community, to redirect a considerable proportion of our resources in a very focused way and not in a way that is superimposing a solution from above or from outside. It must be a way that works with, through and ultimately under the control and decision making by the people in those areas themselves and gives them the kind of support, local industry, housing, recreational facilities and the kind of opportunities which they must have if we are to get out of the present cycle of poverty which has been a feature of our cities and which is worsening and throwing up this incidence of violence and delinquency.
The problem with the approach of spending £600,000 or £1 million or whatever it was, certainly £600,000 was admitted, on converting Loughan House into a closed detention centre far away from the background of these children is that it has the appearance of being an attempt to cope with a very serious social problem, but it does not cope with it in any significant way. It certainly is not, and could not be really argued on the experience of people in so many other countries who have an expertise in the area to be, rehabilitative of the boys involved. It is placing them in the custody of people who, whatever training they may get to help them to discharge the responsibility placed on them, are not either primarily or vocationally child care workers. They are not people who have both the kind of commitment and long-term involvement with difficult children which prepares them to cope and to deal with the most difficult, the rejects from the existing institutions. Again, lest there be any doubt about the principles involved, it should be clear that, as far as I am aware, nobody who is responsibly involved in a working capacity or in a knowledgeable way with the inner city problem denies the need. It is a small but a genuine need for a closed detention centre to remove at least for some specified time the most difficult boys who cannot be coped with in the existing institutions and who require treatment and help and also require to be removed from being in a position to exert an influence in their area which they have managed, in some instances, to dominate over a period. It is not in question that there is a need for a certain closed detention centre and the provision of places there to cope with the most difficult of these boys who, because of their age, are not eligible to be sent to other institutions and who are not accepted by the existing institutions.
The most important and non-negotiable qualifications on that principle are that the closed detention centre should be part of a progressive system, should allow for progression from the closed to the partly-open to the open, within the same complex or in a very linked way with other institutions of child care, should allow for that kind of progression and outlet. It should be centred in the kind of area and background those children come from. These institutions should be within easy reach of relatives and friends so that the boys detained there can have frequent visits from relatives and contemporaries, which will help them not to become institutionalised and aggressive against the institutions in particular and the whole system as they see it in general, so that they do not become totally alienated from society and grow into hardened recidivists at the age of 16 or 17 years with only one life open to them. I am speaking about this in very serious terms because the problem is a very serious one. We must face it in these terms. That is a non-negotiable qualification on the acceptance of the principle that there must be some closed detention centre.
The other non-negotiable principle is that the most difficult children, the ones who are reflecting their own background, very often reflecting a multi-problem family situation, very often reflecting the aggressive juvenile reaction to society which appears neither to want to owe them anything, nor to offer them anything, should be placed in the care and responsibility of those for whom caring for those children is more of a vocation than a job for which they are paid a remuneration. I do not mean that they necessarily have to have a religious vocation. I am talking about people who have the additional commitment of a personal sort which allows them, enables them and helps them to cope with the very taxing, difficult and at times harrowing responsibility of trying to relate to, help and rehabilitate these youngsters.
The major criticism of the Department of Justice in this area is that they have done nothing on the positive side, as had been promised in the manifesto, to provide the legislation reforming the law and procedures relating to children, and that the only innovation on the theme is this unacceptable step backwards of opening Loughan House as a closed detention centre for under 16 year olds. The situation is particularly serious because of the demographic structure of our population. We have not any time at all; we have not any breathing space or leeway in the matter. We have a very young population, the youngest in the European Community. We have a fast-growing population which is the kind of richness and resource, and also problem to accommodate, that we have not had experience of since we achieved our independence. We have not acclimatised and orientated ourselves as a people to the sort of country we have and where our priorities should be.
We must be aware of what is happening externally, of external pressures, external criticisms. We are facing into 1979 which has been proclaimed by the United Nations as the Year of the Child. In Ireland, although we pay lip service to family life, and although it is a very important component in ordinary people's attitude towards their life and their relations with the people in the community, we do not come out well on an examination of the way in which our law in particular, and our institutions, reflect on children. I was very sorry the Minister for Justice refused to accept the Labour Party's Bill to amend the Constitution in two very important respects, first to ensure the constitutionality of adoption procedure and adoption laws.
By not doing so, and by not producing a Government Bill immediately as an alternative response, the Government have left at least 25,000 families with this continuing apprehension, continuing and unnecessary tension and fear, that the family relationship which has been established between the adoptive parents and the adopted children may be shattered by the taking away of the adopted child. The fear is greater than the situation necessarily warrants, because any Government with any sense of humanity would probably intervene very quickly if there were a serious constitutional challenge to our present adoption law and procedure. We would have the kind of Bill that would go through this House in 24 hours. We know examples of that. It is introduced in the Dáil, goes through, comes up to this House and is through in an afternoon. It is not all that unusual. It is possible when the situation is a panic one.
Why do we have to wait for the panic to set in? Why can we not approach the problem with the seriousness and compassion and concern it warrants? Almost all of us have personal experience of either knowing or knowing of families who are deeply concerned and anxious about the present situation. Yet the Minister for Justice responded by indicating that the Government would bring in legislation. How long will it take? This is a further reflection on the lack of any kind of substantial legislative programme on the part of the Government.
The other side of the Bill is equally important and is a balance to the kind of amendment we need to bring in in this area. The other important aspect of this Bill would have removed the stigma and status of illegitimacy. I would hope that when the Government bring in a Government measure eventually to ensure the constitutional security of adoption, they will also in the same measure remove the stigma and status of illegitimacy. This is both appropriate and urgent as we move into this 1979 Year of the Child. The onus is on the Minister not to remedy one part of that situation because the situation is very closely linked, and one cannot just bring in reform on one part of it and ignore the other part.
When I say "ignore the other part" I mean to ignore the very substantial problems of single mothers in our society, problems of a legal, social and economic nature, as they have to face the very difficult decision of whether to keep the child and bring the child up themselves in a one-parent family context, or place the child with adoptive parents. The balanced approach to that very serious and harrowing problem requires that the two be treated together, preferably in the same measure. I cannot understand how it is possible to bring in a significant Bill to cope with those two related problems without amending the Constitution. Perhaps the Minister might enlighten us. It is certainly a question I am asked a great deal at the moment. When the Government bring in a Bill on this issue, is it intended to be and will it be a Bill which will contain a proposal to amend the Constitution?
Still on the Department of Justice, one would move on to consider the absence of reform of the family courts. I say this with a qualification which is important. There has been a very welcome change in the structure of the courts which has happened really for pragmatic and administrative reasons rather than because of a strong Government lead and Government policy in the matter. There is now a separate building up the Quays from the Four Courts which houses the Family Law District Court and the High Court dealing with family law matters. Undoubtedly, this is a very substantial improvement for those who come to seek remedies either in the District Court or in the High Court in the area of family law. The facilities are better.
