Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 22 Jun 1983

Vol. 101 No. 2

Legal Education and Services: Motion.

Mrs. Robinson

I move:

That Seanad Éireann calls for the establishment by the Government of an independent working party to carry out a comprehensive assessment of access to legal education and the provision of legal services in the State, and recommends that the following specific matters be included among others in any such assessment and may be the subject of separate reports:

Legal Education

—Access to legal education; the academic law courses available at third level and the cost of these courses,

—Access to the professional courses; the cost, content and structure of these courses,

—Access by non-lawyers to courses in law;

Legal Profession

—The division of the legal profession into barristers and solicitors and whether this serves the public interest,

—Restrictive practices and traditions within the two branches of the profession,

—Para-legal qualifications and training,

—Legal fees, costs and expenses,

—Relationship of legal profession with clients,

—Complaints machinery;

Judiciary

—Qualifications for and method of appointment of members of the judiciary,

—Opportunities for specialist education or training for members of judiciary,

—Sentencing policy in criminal cases.

I welcome the opportunity to debate this motion in the Seanad. It has been tabled for debate, not as an academic exercise but for a number of cogent and pressing reasons. Perhaps I should begin by listing these: first, to highlight the importance of the whole legal process and the provision of legal services in our society; secondly, to point out that the widespread ignorance of the law and of legal procedures and remedies is itself a serious social problem which should receive more urgent priority and attention; thirdly, to show the unsystematic, unplanned and unsatisfactory way that access to legal education and the provision of legal services have developed in Ireland over the years, and finally to demonstrate the urgent need for an independent review and assessment of both legal education and the provision of legal services so that specific areas of reform can be identified and so that proper structures for greater accountability, openness, fairness and better use of resources can be established. I should begin by explaining what the words "independent working party" in the context of this motion mean so far as the Labour group are concerned. We were anxious to have a working party which would be independent, but representative of the various interests. Clearly, it would require to be representative of the interests of the Department of Justice, but also at Government level, the interests of the Department of Education because of the emphasis on examination of legal education.

Indeed, there might be other Departments, such as the Department of Health which might have a particular interest. The Coolock Community Law Centre is under the auspices of the Department of Health at the moment and therefore the intention was to invite and to hope for representative departmental participation in such a working party. Clearly, both branches of the legal profession have an interest in being represented and have an expertise to offer to such a working party. It would be intended that they would be invited to and would participate in it.

There is also a broader public interest — the interest of the consumer and of the ordinary citizen and, to some extent, that interest can be well represented by some of the bodies and organisations which have been working closely with people on the ground. I am thinking of FLAC which have been providing their own contribution to legal services down the years and are continuing to do so, or organisations such as Cherish or Aim or Ally which work closely with people who have a need of legal services. We believe that the working party should be broadly based in that sense, so that it will have a rounded, balanced, practical and realistic contribution to make.

Having described the nature of the independent working party which we would call for and hope that the Minister will agree to——

Acting Chairman (Mr. Smith)

Could I ask the Senator to defer her statement for a moment, as the division bells are ringing and the Minister will have to be excused? I propose to suspend the sitting for a quarter of an hour.

Sitting suspended at 5.20 p.m. and resumed at 5.40 p.m.

Mrs. Robinson

Before the short break I outlined the main objectives in tabling this motion for debate in the Seanad this afternoon. I was clarifying the reference to an independent working party which was intended to be independent but representative of the interest at departmental level, the obvious interest of the two branches of the profession and the broader public interest.

I should like to discuss in more detail the four objectives of this motion which I have listed. The first objective is a very basic one which we have neglected for a long time in our society. It is to highlight the importance of the legal process itself. This involves an understanding of the role and potential of law in our society. Law in this context can be described as a hidden infrastructure which supports, regulates and, in many ways, determines almost every aspect of our lives in modern society. As it is an all-pervasive infrastructure the law can operate in quite different ways. It can — this is the case all too often at present — become a rigid infrastructure supporting and maintaining the status quo and carrying on structures and institutions which have long lost their usefulness or relevance. Seen in this light, law and the legal process can be a barrier to progress and change.

Law can even be an instrument of repression weighing on those who seek greater flexibility and adaptation in the system. By contrast, because it is this hidden and pervasive infrastructure, law can also be an important instrument and trigger for social change. It can stimulate political thinking about new ways of achieving greater participation or involvement in decision-making in our society. It is a fair comment on the Oireachtas down the years that we have underestimated the potential of the role which law plays in our society and its potential in particular for the kind of adaptation and change which we need to meet our rapidly changing society.

Unfortunately, because the process of law has been largely hidden, secretive and remote in its operation in Ireland, it has all too often played that rigid congealing role of supporting and upholding the status quo as an end in itself. This has resulted in considerable alienation of sectors of the population from law and the legal process. I instance, for example, the very widespread attitude among trade unionists who are of the view that law in the area of industrial relations, in so far as it intervenes, does so crudely and unhelpfully on the other side of the divide. Similarly, there are many individuals weighed down by family problems who, when seeking a legal remedy, find that they do not have ready and easy access to a reasonable commonsense remedy which is helpful to them.

This leads to the second objective of this motion which is again a very basic one that must not be neglected. It is to highlight the serious social problems which result from widespread ignorance of the law and of the whole legal process. The word "ignorance" used here is not intended in the pejorative sense. It is not intended in any way to either judge people or be critical of the fact that they lack knowledge of the basic law, legal procedures and legal process. The word is deliberately chosen because it is the word which appears in a very basic maxim of the law — ignorance of the law is no excuse. In other words, there is a presumption that a person knows the law and, therefore, it is not possible to plead ignorance as a defence to a criminal prosecution or as the reason for the failure of a citizen to assert a legal right, for example, within the statutory period that is allowed for doing so. The stark reality — this is well known to Members of the House — is that a large number of people are not only ignorant of the law in the sense of lacking basic knowledge of it but they are intimidated and frightened by the law in so far as they come in contact with it and are alienated by it to a very serious degree.

If we accept the political proposition which this is, that knowledge is power, then this lack of knowledge is its own kind of powerlessness and helplessness. A basic knowledge and understanding of the law confers on a person the power and confidence to cope with the system, even to use law as a positive help and as a tool or instrument to achieve a particular object. Unfortunately there are whole sections of our population — the poor, young people, the person who drops out of school at the year of 14 or 15 — who are unlikely to have any basic knowledge or understanding of the role and the potential of law in our society and its relevance to them. They are, therefore, powerless and defenceless in our modern technological society.

The second objective is to highlight the fact that this lack of basic knowledge or understanding of the role of law is itself a serious social problem which is generally ignored or overlooked when other social problems are being highlighted. It is certainly a serious and significant factor in perpetuating the poverty traps in our society. It leads to very polarised perspectives on crime and vandalism in our expanding cities and towns with one side arguing the need for greater penalties and more effective enforcement of legal measures and the other side pointing to the inequalities and the harsh social and economic conditions which form a breeding ground for further crime.

Before dealing with access to formal legal education as it is taught in the universities and other third-level institutions, I should like to make a specific plea for increasing people's opportunities to acquire a basic knowledge and understanding of the role of law and of their basic rights. We could go a great deal further in achieving this. We could, for example, do what so many other countries have done and introduce as a Leaving Certificate or other course subject at secondary level a knowledge of the Irish Constitution and the role of law in society. This would be a very relevant and realistic subject for people going through secondary school to learn. We expect voters at the age of 18 to vote on possible amendments to the Constitution and yet we know very well that in a large number of cases they do not know the context of their votes. They do not know what the Constitution provides and how these measures contain certain safeguards and certain remedies and protections for the individual. At second level we should examine, as other countries have done, the teaching of law. We could do it in an acceptable and relevant way. I have seen very exciting school-books used in Australia, New Zealand and in parts of America where they use relevant materials — newspaper headings, accounts of cases and profiles of juries — to give young people a real sense of how the whole legal process operates and how it affects them.

We could go much further in expanding opportunities for adult education. There is an almost insatiable demand among many members of the public for various types of non-specialist courses which would help them to understand the nature and role of law, develop their own contribution to society and help them understand how they can improve their own potential use of law and legal remedies. As part of that I would highlight the potential role of neighbourhood law centres. We have underestimated the importance of the community-based neighbourhood type law centre. It is, therefore, regrettable that the legal aid scheme established by the Government following the decision in the Airey cases before the Court of Human Rights was based on a number of law centres merely providing professional legal services on an individual client basis.

An important opportunity is being missed for much greater education of local communities, involvement on a management committee of representatives of those local communities, identification of problems in a local community be they landlord and tenant problems or a recurring type of family problem or a recurring type of environmental problem or whatever in a particular area which could be dealt with on a representative level. It is through the community based law centres that it is possible for the preventive side of law in local communities to come to fruition. People would acquire the knowledge to enable them to take steps to prevent further difficulties and enable them to see the possibility of improving their own knowledge and understanding of their situation through a better knowledge of the legal rules and remedies. That is the other basic objective of this motion.

The third objective is perhaps more evident in the wording of the motion. It is to show the present unsystematic, unplanned and unsatisfactory way that both access to legal education and the provision of legal services have developed in Ireland. It is worth noting with regret and with a certain sense of self-criticism that neither the area of legal education nor the area of the provision of legal services, including the administration of justice, has received any independent examination or assessment since the establishment of the Free State when we broke from the British system but inherited from it a great deal of the common law tradition and the structure of the profession and other aspects of the legal system. It is all the more striking that in a young Republic which inherited a system of legal education and a division of the legal profession into barristers and solicitors there has not been a realisation of the importance of assessing and considering how well both the legal education side and the provision of legal services have served us in a broad way since we achieved our independence.

Ironically, and this just points out the need for criticism of our own lack of study, both the area of legal education and the provision of legal services have been extensively examined by the jurisdiction from which we borrowed much of our tradition and carried it over. For example, a committee which was appointed in December 1967 and reported in March 1971, examined legal education in England and Wales. More recently, a royal commission on legal services was established in 1976 and reported in 1979 on the whole broad area of the provision of legal services in England and Wales. The report of that commission is contained in two very substantial volumes each divided into two parts. The final report in part 2 of the royal commission report contains a number of interesting and useful surveys and studies, including a survey of users of legal services in Northern Ireland. Apart from that, there was the Armitage Report in 1973 specifically on legal education in Northern Ireland. I am sure the Minister is also aware of studies that have been carried out in most other jurisdictions of very important areas where so much has changed and is changing and where the area itself is of particular public concern and not just the exclusive province of the legal profession and of those who aspire to become members of the legal profession. Here in Ireland we have been content up to now to carry on with our inherited system without any inquiry as to its adequacy. This is all the more curious and all the more unacceptable in our view because the situation with regard to legal education and the provision of legal services has not remained static. It is not a situation about which one could say, there was no need to have an inquiry or an examination because nothing really has changed over the years and everything is carrying on in an orderly and leisurely way. The exact opposite of that is the case.

There has been what can be described only as an explosion of numbers seeking to study law either at the universities or at other third-level institutions in the past decade and a half. This is reflected also in a doubling or more than doubling of the number of legal practitioners in both branches of the profession in the past decade. Again, a few statistics on the record probably demonstrate more dramatically than words how the situation has changed within a decade. For example, I am taking first the Bar, the professional barristers. In 1973 there were approximately 219 practising barristers. The present figure is 480 or more than double the figure of ten years ago. A similar pattern is evident in the number of solicitors. Taking the base in the report of December 1976 of 1,800 practising solicitors this has risen to the present number of approximately 2,752, again a very dramatic increase from 1,800 to 2,752, this time in only seven years. Half of those solicitors operate out of firms located in Dublin. There are approximately 672 firms in the country as a whole. Dublin appears to be very much overendowed with solicitors' firms. Perhaps this is because Dublin has all the additional business of being a capital city but it is interesting that it has twice the number of solicitors as the city of Cork for the percentage of population.

Another more serious criticism is that solicitors' firms tend to be located in the commercial centres, in the business centres of the towns and cities and are badly and inadequately distributed in the housing estates and densely-populated but poorer areas. This is an important factor in talking about physical access to legal services and to the kind of expertise which people need. Even on those minimum figures there has been a very dramatic increase in the number of practitioners and this is also reflected in the situation for law students and graduates. Their situation has become very competitive and very difficult because it is not planned in a systematic and fair way. It has grown up in an ad hoc way where nobody necessarily relates in any decision-making to any of the other bodies involved. Neither of the professional bodies need to, or do particularly consult each other in planning their numbers or access to their courses. The universities operate in a separate way and are not consulted until afterwards by the professional bodies in relation to decisions. Certainly they are not consulted in a way which would allow them to influence and affect decisions to be taken by the professional bodies.

Although the law schools have increased their numbers in recent years these do not go any way to satisfying the possible demands for places in the law schools. Time does not permit me to elaborate very broadly on that but again figures illustrate the extent of the pressure for places in law schools in Ireland. Take the applications for places in the law school in Trinity next September and October: for the 63 places which will be available in the legal science course there are at present 532 applications indicating first preference for law. Last year the number was 441 applications for 63 places and a similar pressure on numbers is evident in the other law schools.

What is now happening and is causing very real concern to law students graduating from the law school is that the numbers of law graduates are beginning to exceed the quotas which have been placed on entry to the professional courses by the two professions. This has been a very serious running problem in the past few years. One difficulty is that the professions themselves are the sole determinants of whether there will be a quota and the size of the quota for entry to the professional course, as they are the determinants of the cost and all the other aspects such as the duration and the content of the courses. It is now becoming clear that law graduates may no longer have an option of going to Blackhall Place to take part in the course for solicitors. It looks as though in the next few years the projections of numbers will mean that similarly some law graduates will be turned away from the possibility of pursuing a career at the Bar at the King's Inns.

All of these issues are not just issues for the individual student and for the legal profession, either branch of the legal profession involved. They are matters of public concern about allocation and use of resources, access to education and access to a career. They should not be left to be determined by a branch of the legal profession which has a monopoly. The King's Inns has a monopoly of conferring the degree of barrister-at-law and therefore can, as it has done in recent years, assert that monopoly to teach for non-law graduates the two preliminary years of the diploma course followed by the two years of the professional course needed to become a barrister and which law graduates also have to take.

The cost of the professional courses is also a matter which is giving very serious cause for concern to the present generation both of law graduates and non-law graduates. The figure basically for the professional course in Blackhall Place comes to a total of £2,450. That is the fee for the course including the cost of the indentures, the five-month first professional course and the six-week advance course. Not only is this a very high sum but the fee for the five-month professional course is £1,580. That must be paid in one sum by whoever wants to pursue the course and the fee for the six-week advance course after the period of apprenticeship is £565 as of next October. That again has to be paid in a lump sum and together with the fees for the Irish examination and so on, it comes to that total of £2,450. The fees for the King's Inns is of a similar level. For the two diploma years it is £500 and for the second year £506. Then you have to apply to enter the professional course and pay a fee of £180 and there are two further years at £506 each on present rates. It comes to more than £2,000 for a non-law graduate and a further two years of high fees for graduates.

Any body which is set up to examine this area will have to look at the content of these courses and at their duration and in particular at the content and duration of the course offered by the King's Inns. I have had the benefit, in preparing to move this motion on behalf of the Labour Group, of talking to a wide number of different bodies with views on this issue. I have spoken to representatives both of the Incorporated Law Society and of the Bar Council. I am glad to say that neither body oppose the establishment of an independent working party such as this. I am grateful to the representatives I spoke to for taking the time to make the points which they wished to make in that regard. I noted that neither branch opposed in any way the establishment of a working party, but the students going through the King's Inns and the Incorporated Law Society to whom I spoke were, on the whole, very critical of the cost and content of the courses, of the pressures being exerted on law students to try to achieve entry to professional courses and at the lack of accountability to any other body as a sole and own control over the whole access to the profession of the two branches of the legal profession.

The case for an examination of the whole situation, given the developments, the explosion in numbers, the pressures and changed circumstances, is unanswerable and is very much in the public interest, which is the motivation behind this motion.

Mr. McGonagle

I formally second the motion.

Mr. Durcan

The motion asks that the House proceeds with the setting up of a working party to examine the question of access to legal education and of the provision of legal services in the State. The whole question of legal education and the access to it is one which confuses many people. It is important to realise that we have two systems of legal education. First, we have the academic institutions, the universities and regional technical colleges, which provide legal education and secondly, we have the professional bodies, the King's Inns and the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland. Both of these bodies also provide legal education for professional courses. They involve themselves also in the training of professional lawyers.

It seems to me that the access to legal education within the academic institutions is very clearly governed by the system. Access to these bodies is the very same as access for all other courses which the universities and regional technical colleges offer; if a student obtains the number of points he obtains access. The situation with regard to the professional bodies is somewhat different because they offer courses of a professional nature. Their structure also is somewhat different. It is unfortunate that the whole question of legal education has become something of a kite which people feel free to fly occasionally. Many people view these kites without realising what is happening within the professional bodies. I have not got much experience of the King's Inns but I understand that in so far as they train barristers, their training courses have been considerably improved in recent years. Their courses are taking cognisance of the needs of Irish society, of the increasing complexity of our legal system and of the new areas of statute law which are rapidly developing in this country.

As a solicitor of ten years standing, I am quite amazed when I meet young lawyers and realise the amount of training they have the benefit of but which I did not have. Courses have developed in planning law, in family law, in labour law and in a whole plethora of legal aspects which simply were not available ten years ago. As a student, I was a member of the first class in family law which was taught formally in this country. That was back in 1971. I am open to correction on that but I believe that the first formal class in family law taught in this country was in UCD in 1971. Now that is virtually a compulsory subject in every one of our law schools, whether professional or academic.

The professional bodies which teach law have been unfairly criticised. I refer in particular to the situation pertaining within the law society as I have greater knowledge of what has been happening there being a former student of that body. It is vitally important that Members of this House and the public realise that the law society is governed by statute. The operation of the solicitors' profession is governed strictly by the Solicitors' Acts. Admission to the law school of the law society is also very strictly governed. Suggestions have been made that admission is simply available to very few and that the fees charged by the law society to their students are exorbitant. It is important to put on the record that these suggestions are not altogether true. It is important to realise that the financing of the law society and the fees charged by the society to their students are matters governed also by statutory regulation and are under review by the President of the High Court who as a judicial person has particular responsibility for the solicitors' profession. Secondly, it is important to realise that any entrant to the society's law school must first pass the common examination which is called the final examination. That rule applies to everybody whether they be law graduates, law clerks of seven years standing or graduates in other disciplines. The cost of that course in all is in the region of £2,000. It is in two parts. The initial part costs approximately £1,500 and the final part costs in the region of £500. Another point which should be borne in mind is that while an apprentice is training to be a solicitor he spends a considerable amount of time in his master's office. While there he is paid a reasonable salary for the work he does and he learns the practical discipline of what it is to be a solicitor.

As a practising solicitor, I have had the experience of having three working apprentices in my office. It is a system which works well. Having met apprentices who have operated and developed under the new law society system, at the end of the day they are very well trained. The law society must be complimented for developing within the past ten years the new course which leads to what I would term the new type of solicitor who is extremely well trained.

The motion refers also to such matters as division between solicitors and barristers. This is a subject which one could debate and discuss at tremendous length. There is a natural division in any profession or in any vocation between the general practitioner and the specialist. Even if the formal terms are abolished and if formally we have a unified legal profession, in practice we continue to have the general practitioners on the one hand and the men and women on the other who are experts in particular fields of law. Whether the experts continue to conduct their business — I refer at the present time to barristers — as they do at the moment, is entirely a matter for them but in practice the system is reasonably satisfactory. One can best judge the working of it from those who are involved in it.

The motion raises also the question of legal fees, costs and matters of that nature. This is something which gives cause for concern because many people at times in their lives which are particularly difficult, for example, when they buy a new house on getting married or when a death occurs in the family are faced with heavy legal fees but the fees charged are not unreasonable. However, certain modifications could be made. I refer to two matters. First, in situations where a new house purchaser takes a mortgage on his house, it is unreasonable that he should be faced with three sets of legal fees. I am referring to the purchaser's fees, his own fees in dealing with the building society, and the building society's fees. I cannot see why a procedure cannot be developed whereby one solicitor would deal with all aspects of the transaction. Bearing in mind the close scrutiny which the law society maintain over practising solicitors and bearing in mind the statutory position which exists and the ultimate power of the President of the High Court to deal with erring solicitors, if the onus was placed on a solicitor acting for a purchaser to deal with all aspects of the transaction he would be in a situation where he would have to do so or would have to face the consequences. The Minister should discuss this with the law society.

The question of VAT should be looked at in certain situations. I am thinking of a purchaser who takes out a mortgage and may be caught for VAT on three sets of legal fees. That is unfair.

The motion refers also to a complaints machinery. That refers merely to the professional lawyers, to the Bar and to the solicitors. I am not familiar with the procedures which exist for erring barristers but I am aware of the fact that there is a statutory situation existing in so far as solicitors are concerned and for solicitors who do not discharge their duties in the way they should. That procedure works extremely efficiently. It works frighteningly expeditiously. From the moment a member of the public makes a complaint, if a solicitor does not respond he will in a matter of weeks find himself before the disciplinary committee of the law society. If there is no adequate response he will find himself in a very short period of time before the President of the High Court. One must contrast that with the situation existing in other professions where it seems there is no adequate complaints machinery. I do not want to specify the professions I have in mind. I have had experience in recent times of wondering how one complains against a member of a caring profession but I was not able to get very far in dealing with it.

The motion raises the important question of the entire method of practice, particularly the practice of solicitors. We are faced with a situation where we have a society that is rapidly becoming urbanised and where the rural population is declining but nevertheless we have a situation where in rural Ireland we have many small towns with quite a number of solicitors' offices. The difficulty that can exist in these offices is that there is not the personnel to deal with the wide and broad ambit of legal matters that come before solicitors. Law students now leaving training institutions whether professional or academic will leave equipped with a knowledge of such matters as planning law, taxation law, family law and labour law but there are a great number of small one- and two-man offices which are not equipped to deal with the various complex problems which a solicitor should be able to deal with and which citizens frequently bring to their attention. In so far as the motion relates to the method of legal practice the law society and other relevant bodies should encourage amalgamation.

The motion refers also to the Judiciary in regard to methods of appointment. We have a political method of appointing people to the Judiciary. That has been criticised. One must ask whether the system works. If one examines the results of the system one finds that since the foundation of the State appointments in 99 per cent of cases have been excellent and have worked extremely well. The reason for that is that successive Ministers for Justice and successive Attorneys General and successive Governments have made appointments in a most responsible way. There would be an advantage in examining the British system and in establishing a Department somewhat like the Lord Chancellor's Department which would examine individuals suitable for appointment, would consider applications for appointment and would consider in a general way the manner in which members of the Judiciary at various levels discharge their duties. Consistency in sentencing policy is one matter that is mentioned in the motion. Consistency in the general discharge of their duties would be welcome.

One point that is never mentioned but which is important to recognise is that the legal system is basic to the maintenance of the State. The legal system is by and large discharged, organised and run by lawyers but the State has a duty in dealing with the legal system and it has a duty to finance the legal system to a far greater extent than is the case.

One of the problems which the legal system suffers from is a complete lack of funds. This is exemplified in a number of ways. It is exemplified by the lack of staffing in all court offices, from the offices of the Supreme Court to the central offices of the High Court and to the office of the District Court. Members of the public complain about delays. They complain about delays in relation to the collection of debts. The solicitor may not be to blame but it may well be the sheriff's office that is to blame or it may be a delay in obtaining an order from a relevant court or it may be a delay in the bureaucratic system. That delay is occasioned by lack of finance. This is exemplified in a second way, that is, by the conditions under which lawyers are expected to work. There is a total inadequacy in the funding of the courts system. Courthouses are in a deplorable condition. While this is a matter for local authorities, it is a matter that the Department of Justice and the Government must examine as a matter of urgency. I do not think that any other professional body would work under the conditions that lawyers are expected to work under in this country. The fact is that they must work in antiquated courthouses without adequate consultation rooms, frequently without heat, sometimes without light and sometimes not even in proper court buildings. I have attended courts in dance-halls, in public house lounges, in semi-derelict schools and I have attended courts in the most appalling conditions. I have attended courts where district justices have been unable to deal with family cases because it was impossible to provide a private facility.

It is a deplorable situation that there is in rural Ireland no adequate facility for dealing with family matters. I am not referring to the training of the Judiciary but in a structural sense, to buildings. There is an immediate need for an injection of funds to help restore confidence because members of the public complain of what they see but they never complain about what they do not appreciate, namely, the work, the hardship and the dedication that goes into maintaining the legal system.

The motion raises many matters of interest. I am glad it has been debated in this House because it gives us the opportunity of considering these matters. I know the Minister is concerned about many of the matters which have been raised and I know that in the next four years of his ministry we will see a substantial reform in many of these areas.

Mr. Lanigan

I am not rising as a member of the legal profession but as one who has an interest in the motion which is very wide-ranging in its implications. It may be that it is too wide-ranging to be encompassed in one report.

On a practical basis it was only recently that I came across the question of access to legal education. My son has just finished his law course in UCD. In the furtherance of a legal career he will have to go through the process of either going through King's Inns or Blackhall Place. From what I have seen of the educational system that brings people to the situation where they either become barristers or solicitors, those who are accepted for law courses in the universities or who go through the college in Rathmines or do an arts course first, the course is extremely difficult and is also extremely expensive. Not alone is the course in the colleges very expensive but the law books required by a student are also extremely expensive.

The situation this year is that if one wants to become a solicitor one has to apply to Blackhall Place. I believe that the limit which is set by Blackhall Place this year is 150 students and in King's Inns there will be an intake of 50. When one considers the number of students who will come out of UCD, UCG, Trinity and the College of Commerce in Rathmines, the figure of 150 would seem to be extremely small. In UCD this year there are in excess of 150 doing the final BCL exam, and if all those students were to go further there would be no places left for students from any other college. Having got their BCL, not alone do they have to do a separate examination to get into Blackhall Place, which will be of an extremely competitive nature, but the cost of the course there is in excess of £2,000 this year. The situation in King's Inns is that they are taking in 50 law graduates this year and if the person has not a BCL or the equivalent King's Inns will provide a course themselves for which they will set the standards and of course they will set the fees also. So there is very limited access to legal education at present and it would appear that access is purely for people who have quite substantial sums of money. I do not think the legal profession or any other profession should be confined to people who have access to large sums of money.

Mr. Durcan

That is not the situation.

Mr. Lanigan

If you want to get in to Blackhall Place the fee will be over £2,000. Who can afford over £2,000 other than somebody who has access to a large sum of money, to get into an educational establishment?

I am not capable of going into the content and structure of the courses. I will leave it to the people who have gone through these courses to judge whether the content and structure are correct. It would appear outside the legal profession that there is an incongruity in having two sets of people from two separate sets of educational structures dealing with the same type of case in court. It seems to me peculiar that a solicitor should have to have a barrister by his side when dealing with relatively trivial matters in the Circuit Court. Often in very trivial matters it seems to somebody who is not in the legal profession that the solicitor or the barrister or one particular type of lawyer should deal with the case. The peculiarity of going to a courthouse and seeing barristers running in and getting from solicitors the bones of a case which will be taken on that day and possibly within half an hour of the barrister being briefed does not seem to be right or proper.

On legal fees, costs and expenses, it would appear to many people that because these are set not in each individual office, but outside the office, there is no competition as between solicitors for the work that solicitors do. There is a feeling in the country at present that there are too many solicitors in the Dublin area and not enough in certain rural areas.

With regard to the relationship between the legal profession and their clients, family tradition seems to dictate that people stick with the one solicitor's office as long as they can and it is not until they find they are not getting the required service that they change. The complaints machinery would seem to be very much in favour of the profession rather than the client, because the only means of taking an action against a solicitor is to go to another solicitor and if you cannot get another solicitor to take it you must go to the profession itself. It is the profession itself that dictates whether the complaint will be dealt with properly or not. There should be a separate complaints machinery which would be outside the legal profession for dealing with complaints made against the legal profession.

Those are a few points I wanted to make on this very broad motion which takes in every aspect of legal education and the manner in which the legal profession works. Perhaps separate motions should have been put down to deal with specific areas. The Judiciary seems to be a totally separate item from either of the first items on the motion.

Mr. E. Ryan

In general the idea behind the motion is an acceptable one. Certainly to oppose it would be to suggest that no improvement was possible in these areas or no improvement was required, and that certainly would not be correct. It is not inappropriate to ask the Government to look at some of the subjects mentioned and to take some action in relation to them. By and large successive Governments have not made much contribution to reforms in the legal profession or the legal system generally.

I feel in relation to this motion that it is rather too ambitious, that it is rather vague in its terms and too wide-ranging. To set up a committee to deal with all these subjects at once would be to set up a committee which, even with the best will in the world, would not report back for several years. Even some of the committees that have operated in the past, such as the Pringle Committee which had to deal with a fairly restricted area, took quite a long time — a couple of years — to report back. For one committee to try to deal with all of the things that are set out in this motion would probably mean that we would not hear of it again for a long time. Events would probably overtake many of the matters with which they would be dealing and their report and recommendations might be irrelevant by the time they would get round to reporting.

I would like to know what is meant by an independent working party, what kind of composition the movers of the motion had in mind, from where it would be drawn and so on. I feel this motion is too ambitious and I would much prefer to see some of the subjects referred to in the motion dealt with individually by appropriate committees. This would be a much better way of dealing with the problem. The subjects dealt with fall into three different areas and that in itself suggests that it might be appropriate to deal with it in three different committees. I would not be in favour of trying to deal with all of these matters at once.

I would like to comment on a few of the matters that are dealt with or suggested for consideration. There is an implied suggestion that the division of the profession into barristers and solicitors is not a desirable division. I find it a rather curious suggestion in this day and age that the legal profession should be merging, when in most other professions the exact opposite is happening. If you take the medical profession which originally merely had surgeons and physicians, there are now literally dozens of specialists in all kinds of areas of medicine. To illustrate this, there was a story at a medical conference recently where one man asked the other, knowing that he was an ear, nose and throat specialist, what he specialised in and the other man replied that he specialised in the antrum; he was then asked whether is was left or right. This is the kind of specialisation we have. It is largely correct to say that when I went to college there were really only mechanical engineers and civil engineers but now there are seven or eight or more different types of engineers emerging from university and they go on to specialise in various post-graduate courses and so on. To suggest therefore in the legal profession where at present there are only two divisions that these two should merge into one seems to me to be swimming very much against the tide.

Apart from that, the division is a sensible and workable one. In very general terms, solicitors look after the day-to-day problems, the office work for their clients, whereas anything that goes to court is looked after by the barristers. This is, of course, a very natural and sensible way of dealing with it. It would be impossible for any one lawyer to spend, on the one hand, all day in his office dealing with clients and, on the other hand, to spend all day in court. This, in a sense, is what seems to be suggested by those advocating a merger of the professions.

The system is a particularly useful and suitable one for the small office, the one-man firm in a small town because he does his work in the ordinary way. He probably appears in the District Court himself, gets a junior counsel for the Circuit Court and then when he has the occasional High Court case he is able to bring in senior counsel. If once or twice in his lifetime he has some outstandingly important case he is able to get the best and most appropriate person in the Law Library to deal with this special case. There is tremendous flexibility in this system. Flexibility is particularly important and useful for the office in a small town where the solicitor can get exactly the counsel he needs for a particular purpose. The merger of the professions would present no problem at all for the very big Dublin firms because they already have 15, 20 or more people in the office and they would quite simply take in half-a-dozen barristers to do the court work and would carry on much the same as usual. For them a merger would not present any difficulty for the simple reason that they already specialise and would continue to specialise, but for the one-man firm it would be very much to his disadvantage, the disadvantage of his clients and ultimately to the disadvantage of the public in general.

I have no doubt whatever that the present division of the profession into barristers and solicitors is a very appropriate and sensible one and the rather facile and simplistic criticism of it is ill-conceived and does not really stand up to examination.

As regards legal education, I am not in a position to comment on education as far as the Incorporated Law Society is concerned. In King's Inns education is both very accessible and very inexpensive and the newly constituted council at the King's Inns have brought many changes and reforms, modernised the education system as far as members of the Bar are concerned and very much improved the quality of the education available.

There has been a certain amount of uninformed or misguided criticism in recent years suggesting that recent changes would result in a restriction in the number of those being able to do the course in the King's Inns. In fact, the number of places has increased in the last few years. At present, there is no limitation on the number of those who wish to do the course there. Eventually this may be necessary because there has to be some limitation on the number who are able to do the course in any particular year.

All costs of education are very high but the cost of the course at the King's Inns is certainly lower than at the university and this is in spite of the fact that the King's Inns receive no capitation grant or anything of that kind from the State. The only subsidy comes from the profession and some scholarships are provided, also.

It is worth noting that the King's Inns provide sufficient places, far more than required by the number who actually want to practise at the bar in any particular year. Something like 30 barristers actually commence practice each year. The King's Inns now have places for up to 100 and many of those who actually do the course go on to other areas. To that extent, there are far more places provided than are actually necessary to fulfil the needs of those who wish to practise at the Bar each year.

In regard to the question of judicial appointments, there is mention of qualifications and the method of appointment of members of the Judiciary. The qualifications are a certain number of years practicising at the Bar and this is the best possible qualification unless we are to have a system which they have in Germany where people are trained specially to be judges. I do not think that is the best possible system. As regards setting up some kind of method of picking people for the bench, it is extremely hard to predict who is going to be a good judge and who is not. What is necessary is experience, temperament, power of assessment and commonsense. My experience over a number of years at the Bar is that many people who are appointed as judges very often do not turn out as one would have expected, to the extent that some of the most outstanding counsel we have ever had turned out to be very disappointing judges and some rather mediocre counsel turned out to be very outstanding judges. What a committee or board could do to pick judges I do not know.

The present system by and large has provided very good results, very adequate results. Perhaps the Government should have more consultation with the profession before making appointments but apart from that I would not be inclined to agree that there should be a radical change in the method by which judges are appointed.

I am certainly in favour of reviewing the matters mentioned in the motion and introducing reforms where they are considered necessary. The motion is too far-reaching and it would take too long to get a report from a single committee. I would be much more inclined to deal with these matters piecemeal.

Minister for Justice (Mr. Noonan,

Limerick East): I am very glad to be in the Seanad to hear the contributions of the Senators on this topic. No one will deny that each of the 12 items listed on the motion are of great importance. I would like to express views on some of the items listed and then to explain my attitude to the motion.

The matter of legal education has been mentioned by many Senators and it has taken up quite a proportion of the debate. The Solicitors Act of 1954 vests autonomy in the Incorporated Law Society in regard to the regulation of the educational requirements for admission as a solicitor. Regulations made by the society under the Act do not require the concurrence of the Minister for Justice and, while every such regulation must be laid before each House of the Oireachtas, neither House has power to annul such regulations.

The Society of King's Inns controls entry to the profession of barrister. It is an independent body with exclusive control over education, training and admission to the profession. I understand that education grants are available to qualified students in respect of the professional courses for solicitors and barristers, which I am told the Department of Education recognise as being equivalent to post-graduate study for grant purposes.

I am also aware that previous Ministers for Justice have commented on the question of legal education. The emphasis in many of these statements was on the need for reform of legal education and in particular on the desirability of getting the professional bodies to require a university degree in law to be a prerequisite to admission to the profession and on the possibility of establishing a joint professional law school, no doubt with a view to encouraging a more unified profession.

I am also aware that both of the professional bodies involved have engaged in considerable reform of the structure and content of their educational requirements and activities in recent years. While some of the changes introduced aimed at professionalising the content of the courses provided are surely welcome developments, others have been criticised largely on the grounds that they have the effect of restricting entry to both branches of the profession and affect the availability of courses of legal education at other institutions.

I do not propose to debate the arguments relating to these issues in the course of this motion. However, I personally consider the present entry arrangements to both sides of the profession to be over-restrictive. I am concerned that, while we have in recent years taken real steps towards making justice more accessible to people, at the same time access to the practice of the law is being made more difficult for persons coming from the less privileged social stratum. I invite the professional bodies to consider carefully the long-term implications of their policies in this area.

Having said that, I should emphasise that this whole question goes well beyond my area of responsibility and raises wide matters of public policy with regard to third-level education, as well as educational facilities in the broadest sense. The public criticisms which have been made of the present arrangements have come in general from academic quarters and from student bodies. While students will be the people most immediately affected by the changes that have been made, they are not, I suggest, the only group affected. Parents and prospective students must also be concerned and the availability, quality and cost of legal services are also important as far as the general administration of justice is concerned. Taking Senator Robinson's point on access to the law and current interest in legal education and the desirability that the public at large would be better informed on legal matters, any changes which are made, which have been made, or which will be made would be of interest legitimately to the community as a whole.

Two of the Senators made reference to the cost of legal education. While obviously wandering outside my own particular area, it might be of interest to look at the professional fees charged in other professions. For example, in UCD the fee charged for a primary degree, to qualify somebody in arts or for secondary teaching as a profession, is £658 for three years and an additional £488 for the Higher Diploma in Education, a total of £2,462. To qualify as a national teacher in, for example, the College of Education in Drumcondra, over three years costs £1,920. To become a veterinary surgeon at UCD would cost a total of £4,850; to become a dentist £4,798; to become a doctor, which takes six years, costs a total of £5,013 in UCD and about the same in Trinity; to become a pharmacist takes four years in Trinity College and costs a total of £3,352. Looking at the fees to gain the professional qualifications necessary for entry to other professions, I do not think the point is valid that the fees for access to the legal profession are prohibitive. They are certainly not more prohibitive than fees for access to the other professions. Obviously that does not prove anything; it just indicates that fees in third-level colleges are generally high.

There is an implication in the motion that nothing has been done or is being done on the wide range of legal issues set out. That is not so. A number of issues mentioned are already the subject of specialist examination. The Restrictive Practices Commission have conducted a public inquiry into conveyancing restrictions and the prohibition of advertising by solicitors. I understand that they have submitted their report to the Minister for Trade, Commerce and Tourism and that it is being considered in the Department at present. The question of examining other alleged restrictive practices referred to in the motion would be appropriate for consideration in connection with the statutory restrictive practices machinery for which the Minister for Trade, Commerce and Tourism is responsible.

An area in which I have statutory responsibility at present is that of legal remuneration and costs. Here, too, separate inquiries have been carried out in the past. However, the most usual complaints in relation to this which have come to my Department have come from the profession itself and relate to ministerial refusals to implement proposals to increase costs.

With regard to the solicitor and client relationship and complaints machinery, I am aware that there have been calls in the past for reforms in this area and in particular for a degree of lay participation in the disciplinary machinery for solicitors, which is the responsibility of the Law Society and the High Court under the Solicitors Acts of 1954 and 1960. This is a matter which is under consideration in my Department already and I was interested in the points made by Senator Lanigan in this context.

There are many constitutional implications in regard to the matters concerning the Judiciary included in the motion, in particular the item calling for an inquiry by an independent body into sentencing policy in criminal cases. Do the movers of this motion envisage that the judges will be called before this body? The Judiciary are, of course, independent in the exercise of their functions, subject only to the Constitution and the law.

In the course of a recent debate in the Dáil on a motion about uniformity in sentences imposed for serious criminal offences, I stressed the unique relationship between both Houses of the Oireachtas on the one hand, and the Judiciary on the other, and that the independence of the Judiciary is at the very heart of our system. I also said on that occasion that I favoured more consultation among judges and district justices and, apart from consultations, a greater readiness on the part of individual members to take account of the consensus among their colleagues as to what sentences are appropriate. Obviously, consultation is ineffective if those who partake in it go their own way afterwards and take no notice of the advice offered.

I indicated that I was prepared to do anything I could, with propriety, to encourage such consultations, when circumstances suggested that they would be useful. I do not think that I can go beyond that in relation to the terms of the motion, having regard to the Constitution and the other considerations I have referred to.

On the other hand, I am aware of the public concern that has been voiced in relation to sentencing. I can sympathise with that concern. I have already said that I do not see any possibility of greater uniformity being achieved by legislation. It seems to me that the solution to the problem is within the competence of the courts themselves. Senators may be aware that under existing legislation there is specific provision for meetings of district justices, under the chairmanship of the President of the District Court, to discuss matters relating to the discharge of the business of that court, including, in particular, the avoidance of undue divergences, and I quote, "in the exercise of their jurisdiction by justices". While there is no similar provision in relation to the other courts there is nothing to prevent such meetings, and in recent years the Chief Justice has been holding meetings of judges and justices to discuss matters of this kind. I have been happy to facilitate such meetings. But again I would stress the point that meetings, as such, will be of benefit only if those who participate in those meetings are prepared to take the advice offered by the consensus of their peers.

This motion presents a difficulty to me because first of all it calls on the Government to establish an independent working party. Obviously, I cannot accept such a large measure of policy as presented in this motion without consultation with the Government and without the authorisation of the Government. I have not had an opportunity to discuss it with the Government. Second — and the debate has clearly shown this — it is inter-departmental in nature: many of the things discussed here are appropriate to the Minister for Education and many are appropriate, as I said, to the Minister for Trade, Commerce and Tourism. Third, there is a problem with committees. I think committees have been used frequently in our system to side-step issues which could be dealt with directly, and I do not want to be in a situation in which matters would be referred to a committee and inhibit ministerial action subsequently until a committee has reported.

But within the constraints of that, and within the time constraints imposed on me by the division bells ringing at the moment, I would like to say that I am very glad to have had the opportunity to listen to the views expressed by the Senators. I will communicate those views to the Government and I hope that in the normal ordering of business in the Seanad, subsequently in some months time there will be an opportunity to look at the situation again. Beyond that I cannot go for the reasons I have explained, but I will communicate to the Government the views expressed here and I would hope that some mechanism can be provided where I can communicate to the Seanad again on the issues raised.

Mrs. Robinson

I thank Senators who contributed to the debate, and obviously the Minister, who has had to depart for a vote in the other House. I think it is to some extent significant that most of the Senators who contributed are lawyers, which to a certain extent illustrates at least part of the motivation behind this motion. For a number of other Senators, and Senator Lanigan is an exception to this, it is difficult to know enough about the practice of law and the provision of legal services to feel competent enough to contribute and criticise or make a constructive contribution to the debate. The mystique and the hidden operations of the law defeat many people who are interested but basically not able to voice or express their criticisms. That is the first point that I would like to make.

I think of my two legal colleagues who spoke. There was a tendency to defend and justify a system in the absence of the kind of examination that this motion basically called for. It is a case of "looking into the legal heart and all is well". I don't think that is adequate or sufficient. We tend in Ireland to be prepared to carry on with a system even if it is open to criticism, and is criticised, as the present situation with regard to access to legal education and provision of legal services is very substantially cirticised both by students, in so far as it is relevant to legal education, and others in our society, and the ordinary consumer of legal services and those who work with people who do not have access to legal services. There are very substantial criticisms and I regret that many of these have not been voiced here this evening on this motion.

Turning to the points that were made by those Senators who contributed, I was interested in a number of the specific points made by Senator Durcan in relation to developments in the content of law courses. He is correct that there have been very interesting and useful developments in the kinds of courses and indeed the tendency to have an optional structure of the academic law degree courses to enable students to opt for particular subjects and therefore, to some extent, determine their future career opportunities of specialisation. He is correct that a course in family law was only introduced in any of the law schools here in the early seventies. That is an area which is still very much neglected and only beginning to form part of law teaching.

Also a matter for concern is the whole area of social welfare law, which affects a very substantial number of people and yet it is very hard to get access to knowledge and expertise in the area. It is significant that this is an area that FLAC are particularly concentrating on at the moment. They have changed their approach since the introduction of the limited civil legal aid scheme and the operation of the law centres. FLAC have been concentrating on providing welfare rights centres to provide knowledge and information about welfare rights to that sector of the population who tend not to have access in the normal way to legal services and who are very often deprived of basic knowledge of their rights and the remedies that might be available to them. I spoke to some representatives of FLAC about the work they are doing, and they emphasised the importance, as I would do, of developing the proper neighbourhood community law centres to meet and to expand this demand.

The representatives of FLAC with whom I discussed this motion also emphasised, in a different way from Senator Durcan, the need for an improvement in the complaints machinery. Senator Durcan seemed to be relatively happy with the way the complaints machinery operates through the disciplinary committee of the Incorporated Law Society and the reference to the President of the High Court. That was not the experience of FLAC. Again and again they said they deal with complaints about individual solicitors or firms. They advise on how the complaints should be filed with the Incorporated Law Society, and in a very large number of cases, as far as the members of the public are concerned, there the matter rests: nothing effective happens; if anything happens it is not immediately and efficiently done; months pass and very often then at the end of it there is a letter from the disciplinary committee saying the matter is being examined, and there is no cause to bring it any further.

Indeed, the representatives of the Incorporated Law Society with whom I discussed this motion made the point that in their view and in the view of the Incorporated Law Society as a whole, the disciplinary committee do not have adequate teeth. They pointed out that following the successful legal challenge that was mounted in 1954, and the change in the position, the Disciplinary Committee of the Incorporated Law Society cannot themselves impose any sanctions. They cannot fine, or suspend or take any direct action against a solicitor or firm that has been involved in what would be regarded as malpractice. They can merely refer the matter to the President of the High Court and he then has power to impose sanctions. The representatives of the Incorporated Law Society admitted that there are delays and inadequacies in that system and that they would welcome some strengthening of it and some examination of it. There is a need for a public component there, and the Minister referred to this.

Senator Lanigan was the only Member of the House who spoke as a non-lawyer, and I think he spoke with the experience of a parent who has a child who has just gone through law school and who may wish to go on to one of the professional courses. A number of the points he made would be a fairly wide reflection of public criticism of some of the cost and inaccessability of the system. He commented on this motion as being too wide-ranging and that it might have been preferable, perhaps, to have two separate motions — one on legal education and another on the whole question of provision of legal services. Indeed, Senator Eoin Ryan made a similar comment about the width of the suggested terms of reference. To some extent, the broad framing of the motion was for practical reasons, but it is difficult to get time for Private Members' motions in this House to have matters discussed and, therefore, there is the temptation at least to frame a motion in such a broad context that various issues of competing and perhaps equal importance can be raised and discussed.

More relevantly, whenever there is a discussion about either access to or the contents of legal education that leads to a consideration of the provision of legal services, this leads on naturally to the consideration of the way in which we provide legal services in the State. Similarly, you cannot discuss for any length of time the provision of legal services without looking at access to legal education and the way in which that is structured, and the division between academic law and the courses offered by the two branches of the profession. So it is better to have a broadly framed motion which raises these issues and gives an opportunity for full examination of them. Also, the motion is flexible in expressly permitting the independent working party, if established, to bring in separate reports on different aspects of it and, therefore, to establish an order of priorities of what is to be examined first, and different working parties on different aspects under the broad auspices of the independent working party.

Both Senator Eoin Ryan and the Minister referred to the part of the motion which deals with the Judiciary. Both, as I would do myself, quite properly emphasised the importance of the independence of the Judiciary under our system. That, of course, is not in any way threatened or intended to be undermined, by this motion. However, it is worth drawing attention to the fact that there is no provision in Ireland for any refresher or specialist courses for members of the Judiciary. That is in striking contrast to developments in other countries. There has been an increasing tendency to provide for specialist courses and refresher seminars and opportunities for members of the Judiciary at various levels to inform themselves and to acquire further knowledge of the areas of law with which they may have to deal in court.

I agree with Senator Durcan about the need for a greater injection of funds into certain areas of the administration of justice. An extremely important and not very well understood point is the under-funding of the whole administration of the courts system: the failure to appoint registrars in certain areas; indeed, the question of whether we have enough judges, particularly of the High Court, to deal with the backlog of cases that has now arisen.

We could do other things which do not cost, to improve the way in which judges are able to do some of the work, particularly in the High and Supreme Courts. There was a report of the Committee on Court Practice and Procedure away back in 1970 on the judges of the Supreme Court, on the operations of the Supreme Court, which recommended that Supreme Court judges should have law clerks allocated to them to help them with research into their judgments and to provide the kind of backup service which law clerks provide in the United States and in other jurisdictions. This is something which will be well worth examining because there are very long delays at times — I would submit unacceptable delays — in the handing down of judgments in serious cases, be they serious constitutional cases or cases that raise difficult legal issues.

That is understandable, because the only support service for judges at the moment is a typist, and even there I understand certain judges have difficulty in getting typed judgments which they have prepared and written up. There is just that bare minimum service. They should have the possibility of using research facilities, and this would provide useful and very good job opportunities and experience for graduates coming out of law schools. I have heard it said that in fact graduates coming out of law schools are only fit to write the draft opinions of Supreme Court judges: that that is what they are best trained for when they come out of law schools. It is something which I think would be very well worth examining.

The Minister in his contribution displayed his own interest as Minister in the areas under examination and made the point, which I accept, that a number of the issues are broader than the scope of his jurisdiction as Minister for Justice. They involve the Department of Education, the Department of Trade, Commerce and Tourism and I would submit, possibly other Departments such as the Department of Health in this whole area of preventive law and the development of neighbourhood law centres which would bring the knowledge and the relevance of law much closer to large population centres and areas which are not properly provided with a legal service at present.

I accept, therefore, that the motion goes beyond his jurisdiction but I am pleased that he has indicated he will draw to the attention of the Government the points made here today. I hope it will be possible, by raising the matter on the Adjournment, to request some reference back to this House of the attitude of the Government: whether there is a willingness to establish the independent working party which is called for.

I made very clear when moving this motion the nature of the independent working party which the Labour group envisaged. Senator Eoin Ryan raised this point. I do not think he was here when I was outlining the nature of that independent working party. The motion is broad enough and framed in terms that give it a considerable flexibility, but I still maintain, and I do not think that this debate in any way has answered that basic point in the tabling of the motion, that there is an unanswerable case for looking into the situation. We cannot, particularly lawyers cannot, look into their hearts and say "All is well and there is no real need for an examination".

Sometimes it is even a greater matter of public concern that the whole area is so removed from criticism as so much of the practice of our law really is. There may be some criticisms on the ground that it is so difficult for people from the outside to penetrate and to make any impact on the very entrenched, very privileged position of the legal profession in Ireland. It is necessary that we as a democratic country, as a country which values the importance of the whole process and system of law, have that kind of examination and that we know then at the end of it where the areas are that are really in need of reform and how we make progress on them.

My final point is that I very much support the Minister's own desire not to hold things up by referring matters to a committee. I urge him, if there are areas in which he feels it is necessary to move more rapidly, these are areas which need not be referred to any working party or committee when established. We can progress on them with perhaps a Bill or a further opportunity in this House to discuss those specific reforms. I again thank the Minister and other Senators for contributing and I would hope we will have a further opportunity in the near future to assess the response of the Government to this motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.