Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney mentioned a while ago the question of the costs in the Circuit Court, and I would like to put one point to the Minister in regard to that. Everybody admits that the scale of costs in the Circuit Court, particularly as regards minor actions, is entirely too high, and, as Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney said, it shuts the door to certain people who cannot afford to go in there. I think the Minister will understand when I put it this way: A certain type of action which is for more than £10 must go into the Circuit Court. An action arising out of a very minor motor accident, an action arising out of an assault case where the damages are more than £10, any action in tort where the damages claimed exceed £10, is outside the District Court jurisdiction. Whenever the claim is for more than £10 it immediately runs into the high scale of costs in the Circuit Court. The new rules of the Circuit Court are not so very long in existence, and I think it has been the experience of everybody that the scale is too high. There might be an alternative, if it were possible to consider it, altering the present position, and dealing with the matter in an entirely different way. Since the new courts were established in this country the District Court system has given universal satisfaction. The answer to the whole problem as to the expense may be that the Minister would consider increasing the jurisdiction of the District Court in actions in tort to the same level as the District Court has jurisdiction in actions in contract, that would be to the sum of £25. To give an example to the Minister: We will assume that the Minister is involved in a motor accident with somebody else's car. The damage to the Minister's car is £11. To recover that £11 he has got to go into the Circuit Court, because it exceeds the District Court jurisdiction of £10. If the jurisdiction in tort of the District Court were extended to £25, which is the contract jurisdiction in the District Court, it would probably get over a lot of the difficulties that have arisen and would remove many of the hardships imposed on poor people by the high scale in the Circuit Court.
Another point arises on the very same lines. If the Minister examines the District Court rules and the District court jurisdiction as originally established he will find that the District Court has a certain amount of jurisdiction in title. Everybody knows from experience of the legal decisions based on the interpretation of the 1924 Courts of Justice Act and the District Court rules that a District Court decision on title in anyone's favour is practically a decision without prejudice and not worth the paper it is written on. I believe that the District Courts have been a great success in this country. Litigants, practitioners and everybody else have been satisfied that they have been a most outstanding success, and I believe that anyone in the country who has experience of District Court practice would agree that the extension of the District Court jurisdiction in tort to the same level as the jurisdiction in contract would be of benefit particularly to the poorer people of the country.
One rather peculiar thing has happened here recently—I do not know if the Minister is aware of it or not—in regard to the manner in which the Minister's probate registries are issuing original documents such as grants of letters of administration. I do not know whether it is national economy or not, but up to quite recently the paper in a grant of administration or grant of probate used to be a sort of imitation parchment. It is necessary that it should be so, because these are documents to title and documents that would have to be kept and preserved by people if they want to prove their legal rights to holdings.
But during the past six months original grants of letters of administration have been issued on flimsy paper not much heavier than the ordinary scribbling paper we get here. It is not a paper that would last against any wear and tear at all. I would point out to the Minister that these are documents that have to be preserved in perpetuity, and I am sure he will understand the necessity for going back to the old system of using a heavy type of paper. It is common enough, particularly in the country, where people have to preserve documents of title that unless they are very well kept they become almost impossible to handle or to decipher after a very short time. If the Ministry continue to use this very light paper they will not last any more than a year or two.
There is another item as regards the question of the land registry and their maps. One of the causes of delay is a little bit of red tape. If a solicitor writes up to the land registry and says he wants to get the land registry folio 123456, County Cork, the land registry knows what he wants, but instead of sending him down the map they send him a blue form on which to fill up the details of what he wants. That wastes a certain amount of time. That sort of red tape could very easily be dropped.
A few years ago on this Vote I made reference to the practice of the Gárdaí in dealing with a certain type of prosecution under the Road Traffic Act for motor offences. I put it to the Minister at the time that the Guards appeared to be usurping the functions of judge and jury in motor accident cases, and I am afraid the same practice still prevails. It is entirely unfair in my opinion. Two cars run into each other, head on, at a blind turn. The Guards are not looking at the accident. The Guards are sent for, and we assume that the cars are left as they should be left. The Guards come and they interview anybody present. They go back and make their reports. They generally serve notice of intention to prosecute on both drivers, but a fortnight or so elapses and it generally turns out that one party to the accident is prosecuted for dangerous driving, and the other is not. To all outward intents and purposes the particular Guard who examined the spot and interviewed the witnesses on the spot may be perfectly justified in prosecuting one driver and not the other, because he is acting on the impression he got from what he was told and what he saw. But he did not see the accident, and when the actual evidence is given in court it may lead to another viewpoint altogether. I know a case where a motor accident took place where a road leading from a cemetery, which was not even a by-road, joined a main steam-rolled road. A driver was travelling along the main steam-rolled road when a car suddenly appeared out of the passage-way leading to the cemetery and struck him amidships. The Guards were sent for. They interviewed the witnesses and drivers, and later they prosecuted the man who was on the main road, and did not prosecute the man who had suddenly come out of this by-road leading to the cemetery. The case came before the district court, and the district justice very properly dismissed the case on the grounds that it was perfectly obvious to everybody that the man on the main road had the right of traffic, and that the fault lay with the man who had so suddenly appeared out of the by-road.
The result was that the man on the main road succeeded in recovering damages against the man on the by-road. In that case, in the first instance, the Guard who had gone out and measured the place and interviewed the witnesses had taken unto himself the functions of judge and jury because, by issuing a prosecution against one man and not the other, he immediately established the idea at least that the man who was prosecuted was in the wrong. I agree that there are cases where the Guards are definitely in a position to ascertain immediately who is in the wrong, but there is quite a large number in my experience —and the number is high all over the country—where the Guards come along, see what is left of the accident, interview the witnesses and then issue a prosecution against one party. If the Minister went into the figures, or if he could get the figures, of the number of cases where Gárda prosecutions have been dismissed and where only one party in the action has been prosecuted, I think he will find that the figure was pretty high.
There is one other point that I should like to make, and that is in connection with motor insurance. I wonder if the Minister would look into the provisions of the Road Traffic Act as regards compulsory insurance. So far as it goes, the insurance which motor owners are required to have now gives a certain amount of cover and it certainly does protect the interests of the road users and third parties to a great extent, but it does not cover everybody—possibly it was not intended to cover everybody—and there is one type of accident where people may be very seriously injured and yet find it impossible to recover damages. Let me put it this way. If the Minister is driving in a private car owned by a friend of his and an accident takes place owing to his friend's negligence and the Minister is seriously injured, his friend may have a policy, under the Road Traffic Act, which completely fulfils all the legal requirements. The friend would be liable to the Minister in strict law if the Minister is injured owing to his friend's negligence, but under what is called a Road Traffic Act policy, which covers just the minimum requirements of the Road Traffic Act, he would not be protected, because it does not cover passengers as distinct from other third parties. If he were walking along the road and the accident occurred, he would be all right in that case; but if he were travelling in a private car the owner of which only had one of these policies that barely cover the provisions of the Road Traffic Act, he would not be covered. The point I am making is that there are policies you can get that would cover such cases, but that people are taking out what they call a Road Traffic Act policy, and it merely covers the minimum requirements of the Road Traffic Act, that you will be prosecuted in certain cases and so on.
There is just one other item that I should like to refer to. It is in connection with the District Court Vote on page 158. There is given there the number 125 as being the number of unestablished District Court clerks. Am I to take it that these unestablished court clerks have no pension rights?
