A Cheann Comhairle, I asked for permission to raise on the Adjournment the subject matter of Question No. 57 on to-day's Order Paper. In case the Minister may think so, I want at the outset to say I am not raising this matter for the purpose of pillorying the Minister with regard to the particular remarks he made in connection with Mr. Garrett Cooney, B. L. The reason I say that is because, so far as Mr. Cooney is concerned, I think the Minister has done the right thing in the House to-day in apologising here in public in a courageous way to Mr. Cooney for the remarks he made concerning him in this House on the 10th December last. Consequently, so far as Mr. Cooney is concerned, I think the Minister has made honourable amendment.
So far as I go, I am quite prepared to applaud the Minister for doing that. It was the right thing to do. I am glad the Minister did it and, if I have any comment to make with regard to it, it is simply to express my regret that the Minister's apology was not made until today and was not made until he was answering the questions which were tabled by Deputy Mark Clinton and myself.
I am raising this matter, however, because I think it is necessary to do so in view of the attitude which the Minister has displayed towards the General Council of the Bar of Ireland, or the Bar Council as it is called for the sake of brevity. The House may be aware that, following the statements which the Minister made in the House on the 10th December last in the course of which he himself invited the Bar Council to conduct an investigation, the Bar Council on the 13th December, 1968, wrote a letter to the Minister in which they referred to the remarks the Minister had made and in which they said this to the Minister in this letter which I am quoting from, a copy of which was published in the Irish Times of 18th February:
"These averments constitute a grave reflection on Mr. Cooney in his professional capacity, and would, if true, subject Mr. Cooney to severe penalties by his professional disciplinary body. This Council, therefore, requests you to supply it with whatever information you may have on these matters, in order that it may carry out a thorough investigation."
There was the situation. The Minister, having made certain statements in this House, and having himself suggested there should be an investigation by the disciplinary body of the Bar in Ireland, had the ball thrown back at his own feet by the Bar Council who invited him to submit to them whatever information he might have in order that that body might carry out a thorough investigation. No reply whatever was sent by the Minister to the Bar Council following that letter and some weeks later, on the 8th January, a further letter was sent by the Secretary of the Bar council to the Minister in which he said:
"I am directed to say that the Bar Council has received no reply to its letter to you of December 13th, 1968. The Council regards the matter as urgent, and proposes to deal with it at its meeting on Friday, January 31st, 1969.
The Council would therefore be grateful if you could reply to its letter as soon as possible."
That communication from the Secretary of the Bar Council elicited a reply, not from the Minister, but from the Minister's Private Secretary, who wrote on the 10th January, 1969:
"I am directed by Mr. Ó Moráin, T. D., Minister for Justice, to acknowledge receipt of yours of the 8th instant which will be brought to the Minister's attention as soon as possible."
The Minister, apparently, directed his Private Secretary to bring the letter to his, the Minister's, attention as soon as possible. That, I think, is comment enough on that particular communication from the Minister. However, having directed his Private Secretary to bring the matter to his attention as soon as possible, apparently nothing more was done about it. That was on the 10th January, 1969, and ultimately the Bar Council met, conducted their investigation and came to their decision. I do not want to comment on that. The Minister has done the right, decent and courageous thing in apologising, but when the Bar Council came to their conclusions with regard to this matter, and when their findings fully and completely vindicated Mr. Cooney, they communicated their findings to the Minister by letter of the 3rd February. The Secretary of the Bar Council wrote directly to the Minister on that day:
"Dear Mr. Ó Moráin, I enclose the finding of the Bar Council in the matter of Mr. Garrett Cooney, Barrister at Law, concerning which letter were sent to you on the 13th December, 1968, and the 8th January, 1969.
The Bar Council is of opinion that you ought to withdraw your statements publicly and apologise to Mr. Cooney.
The Council will meet on Friday, 14th February, 1969, at 3.30 p.m. to consider your reply."
That was the position on the 3rd of this month and as far as I am aware, and I think this is correct—and it was implicit in the Minister's reply to my questions today, though the matter is not dealt with specifically there—it is clear that no reply whatever was sent by the Minister to that communicaion.
There are two things involved here. First of all, let me say that the General Council of the Bar of Ireland are an elected body consisting of practising members, senior and junior, of the Bar in Ireland. They are a disciplinary body which investigate complaints made against any member of the Bar or made by any member of the Bar; they are completely non-policical, absolutely impartial in their dealings and, as I said earlier, an elected body. To my mind, anyone in the position occupied by the Minister for Justice should, if necessary, go out of his way to ensure that as far as he can achieve it there will be complete co-operation and trust as between himself and a profession body of this sort dealing with one of the branches of the legal profession—a body which, to my mind, is entitled not only to courtesy but respect from any Minister for Justice.
Despite the fact that he had asked his Private Secretary to bring the matter to his attention, the Minister did not deign to make any further reply, notwithstanding that he himself had suggested in this House that an investigation should be carried out. In these circumstances, I think it is right to raise the matter on the Adjournment on that issue alone—that the Minister for Justice should extend what any of us would regard as ordinary courtesty when dealing with a body of this sort.
When this matter was raised earlier today, there were certain supplementary questions. In one of them, I asked the Minister if he would deal with some of the matters raised in my question about his non-reply to the letters issued to him by the Bar Council. I said it seemed to me from the statement made by the Bar Council that the Minister had been afforded every opportunity by the body of submitting whatever case he wanted to submit for investigation on the assurance that it would be fully investigated. I asked:
Would the Minister explain why it is only now, towards the end of February, in response to two Questions tabled here in Dáil, that the information the Minister has given in his reply has been given when a letter was sent to him by the Bar Council, containing their findings, as early as 3rd of this month.
In reply to that supplementary the Minister said—and I quote from the unrevised Official Report:
As I repeat, I do not know what, if any, investigation the Bar Council made, which I think they should have made, to ascertain how Deputy L'Estrange came into possession of these pleadings, how he got them or who was the go-between. It is their business to do that. I do not know if they have done anything about that. No doubt they will tell us. They have kept very quiet about that side of it which is the real issue in this matter.
It seems to me that the attitude of the Minister to this body, which, as I said, is an elected body, completely non-political, completely impartial, as demonstrated on this occasion in that respect, leaves a great deal to be desired. I do not think there is anything that has been done or anything left undone by the Bar Council in relation to this matter which entitles the Minister to put them in the dock. Yet it seems to me that, from the Minister's attitude, that is what he has been trying to do.
It may be that the Minister may have resented this somewhat embarrassiong position in which he was placed by the findings of the Bar Council, but the mere fact that the situation is as it is demonstrates the complete impartiality of that body in dealing with a matter of this sort; and I do not think it is right that the Minister should, a it seems to me he did in response to my supplementary questions, suggest that Bar Council had left undone something which they should have done.
It is open to the Minister, should he desire to do so, to request the Bar Council to make any further investigations he feels they should make. If he feels it necessary to do that, and if these investigations are undertaken, I express the hope now that the Minister will be very much more forthcoming with the Bar Council than he was in response to the communications they sent him in relation to the investigation they carried out.
I raise this matter also on the Adjournment because I believe that when Deputies put down Parliamentary Questions for answer by any Minister they are entitled to get full replies to those questions. In the course of my question today, I asked the Minister if he would explain why up to 17th of this month no reply, other than the reply of 10th January, 1969, from his Private Secretary, was sent to the Council's letters of 30th December, 1968, and 9th January, 1969, and I asked him if any reply had been sent to the Council's letter of 3rd February, 1969?
I think I am correct in saying that in the course of the lengthy reply the Minister gave neither of these questions was answered by him. A Deputy who puts down questions to a Minister on matters of this sort is entitled to get all the information the Minister has. They should be answered if for no other reason than to establish facts but also because Deputies have the right to elicit information from Ministers of State. As I said earlier, I think the Minister acted correctly in certain respects. I am glad, therefore, to have been able to make the statement I made at the outset.
