asked the Minister for Justice if new informal, and less institutionalised procedures and tribunals will be established in relation to family law and child offenders which will have expert remedial and social back-up services at their disposal.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Family Law Procedures.
7.
The phraseology of this question is, of course, taken from the pre-election manifesto and the question has to be interpreted in the light of the assertion made by the Deputy, in the brief debate on Friday, 13 June on my Department's Estimates, to the effect that no action had been taken in this area.
I gave a very detailed reply to a similar question from Deputy O'Brien on 13 December 1977 columns 1210 to 1213 of the Official Report — and I do not think it either necessary or appropriate to repeat that reply now as it is on the record of the House. I would like to add, however, three brief points:
First: I have already announced that a new Courts Bill will be introduced very shortly which will have significant benefits in making less formalised procedures available to many litigants in the area of family law;
Secondly: I have already announced that there has been and continues to be substantial expansion in the welfare officer service attached to the courts;
Thirdly: It should not be necessary at this stage to point out that the Minister for Justice never was, and is not now, the Minister responsible for the introduction of legislation relating to child offenders — despite which fact parliamentary questions continue to be addressed to me based on the contrary assumption.
Subject to what I have just said, I am not at present in a position to make any further statement, and additional proposals or plans in the area covered by the question, in so far as they come within my area of responsibility, will be announced in the normal way when I am in a position to announce them.
Will the Minister accept that the reason why those questions were tabled to him is because they were in the section of the manifesto under his Department. Is it an accurate statement to say, despite the exact wording of the manifesto that new, informal and less institutionalised procedures and tribunals would be established in relation to family law and child offenders, that that has not in fact taken place?
I do not accept that.
Will the Minister indicate to us where precisely the less institutionalised procedures and tribunals in relation to family law and child offenders operate at present?
I have already told the Deputy that a new Courts Bill will be introduced very shortly.
I am asking the Minister about presently.
The Deputy does not have to raise his temperature.
Apparently I am not getting through.
The Deputy need never worry about getting through to me. There will be a new Courts Bill introduced very shortly which will have significant benefits in making less formalised procedures available to many litigants in the area of family law.
How soon?
I certainly hope the Bill will be ready for the first day of the new session.
May I ask the Minister——
I am calling Question No. 8. Deputy Keating wants to keep on asking supplementary questions.
I wish the Minister well in this matter and I shall endeavour to facilitate him and to co-operate with him when the matter comes to fruition but at the moment the situation is that there is a vacuum where there should not be a vacuum.
The Deputy is making a statement.
He is having difficulty perhaps in hiding his disappointment at the fact that we are making progress.
There have been plenty of promises but no action.
I have called the next question.
We have had a lot of new Bills.
There is very good reason for that.
Like the majority of the people, we too are aware of these reasons.
We must move on to the next question.