The Labour Party welcome the main thrust of this important legislation which is long overdue, just like other legislation in the area of Justice. We will support the Bill but hope that during the course of the debate on Committee Stage the Minister will be receptive to amendments just like the Minister of State was during the course of the debate on the Patents Bill. We welcome, in particular, the decision to establish a special committee of the House to deal with the Committee Stage of the Bill. We strongly feel that much of the real work can be done by such a committee. As my colleague, Deputy Taylor, has said, many other Bills could be teased out more efficiently and amended to the satisfaction of the House by such a committee.
Why are we calling it the Solicitors (Amendment) Bill? I have inquired but, so far, I have not received a reply. Other groups, apart from solicitors, are involved in the due process of the law. Are we excluding barristers, including senior counsel, from the Bill? Have we a three-tier system of legislation which will effectively deal with the lowest rank in the legal profession and leave the other two tiers alone? Will there not be any responsibility in relation to them apart from the existing legislation which, as I said, in many cases is outdated and badly needs to be amended? I will be very interested to hear the Minister's explanation for the Bill's title.
I assume that all the ills in relation to the administration of justice about which we hear from time to time — quite frequently we hear complaints from clients or solicitors within the legal profession — are not confined to complaints about solicitors. Maybe there is a logical and reasonable explanation for this and I would be very interested to hear it.
I wish to refer to the proposed special committee of the House. Will the Minister say what form of representation will comprise the committee? When does he expect them to meet? What sort of party representation will be on the committee? It is important to prepare for that committee because the debate in the House is only window-dressing compared to the real work which must be put in.
Courthouses throughout the country — including buildings housing the High Court — are out of the Stone Age. The facilities for solicitors and the legal profession generally are, to say the least, antiquated. Many of the old courts are like pig-sties and should have been knocked down years ago. Some of the buildings are over 100 years old, badly in need of repair and do not have any acoustics. People have to stand in hallways or draughty corridors and solicitors and barristers often have to consult their clients on the footpath. If we do not have proper facilities for the public and for those who administer justice, legislation will not make much difference. The problem is not confined to my constituency, I understand from colleagues that the situation is the same all over the country.
I was in London recently in connection with a court case; it was held in a relatively new courthouse complex which was like the Gresham Hotel compared to the facilities the general public have to put up with here. As Deputy Seán Barrett said, many people arrive at our courthouses at 10 a.m., sit there all day in appalling conditions and are then told to come back the following day. There is not even a facility for making a cup of tea or a meal. Indeed, even toilet facilities are inadequate; this applies to the facilities for judges, barristers, solicitors and in particular the public who pay big money to go to court, win or lose. They must suffer the indignity of the facilities as well as perhaps losing a case. While this matter is not referred to in the Bill it is relevant in the overall administration of justice in respect of the practitioners who have to operate in deplorable conditions. There was a big furore when the court clerks went on strike looking for better conditions. If they went on strike — justifiably — because of the conditions in which they have to operate there would be a strike in virtually every courthouse in the land. No other sector of workers would tolerate the conditions under which they have to operate.
In my home town we do not even have a courthouse. It has been shifted from a Gaelic club to a parochial hall because it has been condemned. The buck is being passed from the Department of Justice to Louth County Council. I have been a member of the council for nearly 20 years and I am tired of Ministers passing the buck. There is no money to do repair work, the courthouse nearly fell and if Drogheda Corporation had not moved their chamber out of the building, they would probably still be operating in a condemned building.
I am also concerned about the length of time it takes to process injury claims under the road traffic Acts. I am concerned too about injuries in the work-place. I have been dealing with quite a number of them recently and they have been going on for years. There will be a letter from the solicitor to a client and nothing is done in spite of constant telephone calls. This Bill should lay down some standard in relation to that because it is not good enough that someone who has been injured by a machine in a factory should have to wait several years for compensation. It is nonsense. Many of my collegues in the legal profession have told me that this is the case and it happens because of lazy people operating on behalf of clients. They are not carrying out their functions properly and effectively. Of course that does not apply to everyone in the legal profession; on the contrary, the efficient people show up the inefficiences of others. I heard of a case of a man who has been waiting to be compensated for the past six years. If he got even half the money he will eventually get and put it on deposit in a bank he would probably receive more money at the end.
I have come across quite a number of cases — we will be dealing with it in the Bill — where clients' money has been lodged in a solicitor's account. I have had to contact solicitors and barristers directly and tell them that unless the money is paid I would have to take furthere action. I should not have to do that, it should be dealt with by statute within the confines of this Bill. It should state that a solicitor or anyone in the legal profession should not be able to hold money in a client's account after a given period.
I would be very interested to hear comments on that matter from colleagues on both sides of the house who are involved in the profession. Perhaps they will be able to explain why it is necessary to transfer clients' money from one account to another. I wonder why this cannot be dealt with in the Bill because it has not been adequately covered under existing legislation. That matter should be dealt with clearly and decisively and I hope to see an amendment along those lines on Committee Stage.
What would happen if a client's money is stolen by malpractice? The Incorporated Law Society are very conscious of this practice and have tried to come to grips with it. There is an insurance scheme to cover compensation under certain circumstances. As the Law Society will point out, the law at present does not allow for the prosecution of a solicitor or barrister who may, for example, take £250,000 belonging to a client. Yet if a member of the travelling community or a poor person takes groceries from a supermarket they may be imprisoned for six months. There is no justice in that system. The law needs to be strengthened to ensure that it applies equally to all citizens of the State. There should not be one law for the ordinary Joe Soap and another law which protects the people who are supposed to administer it. The Law Society would welcome a change in the law to allow for prosecution of the small minority of people in the profession who tend to give a bad name to the whole organisation of solicitors and barristers.
A question that frequently comes to my attention, and I am sure to the attention of other Members of the House, is the delay in dealing with complaints through the Incorporated Law Society. One can understand why that is so because a great number of complaints have to be dealt with regarding the handling of clients' affairs by individual solicitors or firms of solicitors. Some of these complaints may be justified while others may not. Nevertheless the frustrating delays could be dealt with to some degree in this Bill by the appointment of the co-called ombudsman. I understood that such an ombudsman would be appointed on the same basis as the present Ombudsman, Michael Mills, who operates on an independent basis, funded by the State and is responsible to the Oireachtas. If an ombudsman is appointed under this Bill how would he function? He would be paid by the people whom he is appointed to investigate. That would be like a production manager in a factory investigating the managing director and expecting to get all the answers he requires. More importantly, the appointment of an ombudsman would not have the full support of the general public. That person would not be above suspicion no matter what he or she would find in any individual case. The people would take the attitude that he is not going to bite the hand that is feeding him. Regardless of what is laid down in legislation or regulations no other interpretation would be put on it.
I understand that the Incorporated Law Society would agree to an ombudsman being appointed and paid by the State, with the facilities made available by the State, as is the case with the present Ombudsman. That is the only way the appointment could be made. However, the Department of Finance are not going to give the Department of Justice the money to make such an appointment. The Department of Justice agree to the appointment of an ombudsman who would be paid by the State and would operate independently with certain powers set down by the Oireachtas, but the Department of Finance will not provide the money for such an office. That is possibly one of the reasons it has taken so long for this important Bill to surface.
There is very little reference in the Bill to training and education. The whole question of training for solicitors and the legal profession as a whole within the context of EC law is of vital importance. Our citizens will have to be represented at that level on an increasing basis during the next 15 or 20 years. I doubt that the legal profession have the capacity to train and retrain their people in the same way as workers had to adapt to new technology in the area of footwear, clothing, textiles and electronics. It would be a very big step and I am not convinced, nor indeed are many people within the legal profession, that adequate provision is being made for that. As a result, the public will suffer because the legal people will not be sufficiently trained to represent them.
There should be some provision in the Bill for consultation with clients. In the High Court, large sums of money are involved in compensation for injuries resulting from road accidents and so on, and on occasion when I was present to give evidence regarding wages and conditions of employment in factories I witnessed people being introduced to senior counsel and barristers 15 minutes before a case was due to be heard. In the High Court barristers run from one court to another to represent clients, without consultation with the clients and in many cases depending on notes from a solicitor. The Bill should deal with the rights of clients. Again, while this practice is evident only in a minority of cases it gives the legal profession a bad name. People sometimes claim they are not adequately represented. In the High Court I have witnessed a junior counsel representing a client in one court while at the same time senior counsel was in another court representing a different client. I do not know whether that is the responsibility of the administration of the High Court or of any court — I assume it is not likely to happen to the same degree in the District or Circuit Courts.
I agree with Deputy Barrett that there are huge queues of people in the hallways waiting for their case to be heard in the District Court and in the Circuit Court. Surely people, whether on a panel for jury service or being prosecuted, have some rights and I do not think that any attempt is being made in this Bill to afford them the rights due to any person. In this Bill we are dealing with changes in the law in relation to the legal profession, but we are not doing anything to change the facilities and the service to clients. The members of the legal profession freely admit that without clients there would be no legal profession and therefore the service must be loaded in favour of the clients. If the clients are not paying the bill directly, they are paying it through PAYE or through taxation in general.
The question of the compulsory Irish examination was raised. We would all like to see everybody speaking Irish, but let us face the fact that that is not going to happen. Everybody has a love of the Irish language to some degree, depending on his upbringing or where he lives, but in this day and age we should be talking about barristers and solicitors learning to speak French and German or other European languages. Indeed, if we were to have a debate in this House on any aspect of the Irish language, a simultaneous translation would be provided. I understand that the Incorporated Law Society were prepared to provide a panel of solicitors who have adequate Irish to conduct a court case through the medium of Irish. Indeed, Deputy McCartan freely admitted this morning that he would not take a case in Irish because he would not feel competent to conduct the case in Irish. I think that is an honourable position to adopt.
I know a number of my colleagues would like to contribute to the debate before it concludes at 7 p.m. so I will deal with just one more aspect of the Bill. The purpose of the Solicitors (Amendment) Bill is to effect a major reform of the law relating to solicitors. The Bill will give greater protection to solicitors' clients and increase the Law Society's powers to intervene in solicitors' practices. Reform of the legal service should not be allowed to proceed without action being taken on the precarious position of the legal aid system. At present the Bill is only relevant to the section of the population who can afford to pay for legal services and consequently it is irrelevant to the larger section of the community who cannot afford legal services and have to rely on the skeleton service provided under the legal aid scheme. The Labour Party maintain that until the present Minister or any other Minister in the Department of Justice places our free legal aid system on a statutory basis, access to the legal service will continue to depend on the ability to pay rather than on the principle of equal access to justice for all and equal justice for all. It is essential that all eligible people have access to free legal aid. It is essential to the whole concept of democracy. In my opinion it is unconstitutional to provide a service for one section of the community and deny it to the vast majority of the population. At present it takes a minimum of three months to get an appointment to see a lawyer in any of the legal aid centres throughout the country. In Dublin the position is much worse and the doors of the centres are effectively closed. The crisis in both the funding and staffing of legal aid has led to the point of its virtual collapse. Members in both Houses of the Oireachtas who have to deal with the system will agree with that viewpoint.
To make matters worse, centres that are in any way operational have to try to plan to deal with a 25 per cent increase in the number of clients as a result of the Judicial Separation Act. The legal remedy provided under this Act is not available to hundreds of families. The failure of the State to provide the less well off with the means of access to the law flies in the face of the spirit of the undertakings given at the European Court of Justice and in my opinion this is a fundamental breach of the Constitution.
The underfunded, understaffed legal aid scheme is limited to the substantial minority of the population who need it and those who are in a position to avail of its services are compelled to face long and frequently impractical delays before they even get to see a solicitor. The scheme lacks a statutory basis and is not clearly defined in any legislation that I am aware of, but perhaps my colleague, Deputy Andrews, might be able to shed some light on that.
In theory the legal aid service is restricted in the type of problems that can be entertained but in practice it can consider only the most urgent matters from the most needy, and those who are unable to avail of the service are forced to rely on the charity of the staff of the free legal aid centres and other practitioners. I know that many solicitors and barristers give of their time for nothing. People who have been prosecuted and have had to go to a family court are not in a position to wait for six months to get an appointment with a solicitor and another six months before the solicitor can go to court.
The Minister must pay close attention to the State's moral and international obligations in this regard. As I had pointed out, many years ago the Government would have to meet their obligations under the social welfare code and because of their failure to do so they are now faced with a very substantial sum, which amounts to £400 million or thereabouts, even though it started off at £40 million. Something similar may happen in relation to the free legal aid system when it is discovered that peoples' rights are being infringed and that the people who cannot afford to pay are not getting adequate and proper legal representation. I have seen barristers and solicitors virtually running out of the court into the hallway to consult clients and then go back in to make a case for the client under that system. That is not justice. There should be regulations in the Bill and it should be clearly defined.
If someone were able to pay a fairly large sum of money for the top people in the business then he or she would pretty soon get an appointment and would get all of the consultation and the expert witnesses who were available — investigators, engineers, architects, soldiers and so on. In this country one can buy anything with money; but if one has no money then one cannot buy justice, one cannot have justice. In my opinion there are many hundreds of people in our jails who are there because they were inadequately represented. Most of them are people from the lower income groups such as those in receipt of social welfare benefits — people who in many cases could not afford to employ a solicitor, even one from the bottom end of the ladder.
Advertising, my foot. I laughed when I saw the subject of advertisements introduced. It is all right to talk about advertising fees, but what about the very substantial proportion of people who would not be able to pay a solicitor irrespective of what was advertised? If fees were advertised the only people who would be able to pay are those who can already pay, those to whom effectively the question of money does not matter all that much.
Another question is raised: who is to pay for the advertising? At the moment an advertisement in a local paper for a "clinic" costs about £60. It cost £50, £60 or £100 for a solicitor, depending on the case and depending on the level of representation opted for. In other words, advertising would become a major part of the expense incurred in relation to court cases themselves, but it would not be the legal profession who pay. The legal profession would freely admit that they are not about to pay hundreds and thousands of pounds to advertise their fees in local and national newspapers. They will claim the expense somewhere. Solicitors will charge their clients; it is the clients who will pay the bill. Advertising fees will not reduce the level of charges made by solicitors; it will increase the charges to the people who have to pay, many of whom cannot afford to pay anyway. The Labour Party have continuously demanded the establishment of a statutory right to legal aid as a priority in order to provide more equitable access to justice in Ireland.
In conclusion, I wish to state that I have been reliably informed that a Legal Services Bill has already been drafted and is lying dormant in the Department of Justice and that the passage of that Bill is all that it would take to give the free legal aid system the statutory basis it requires in order to operate as a comprehensive service. The position is scandalous and if that is true, I have good reason to believe that it is true. But this urgently required Bill has not yet been brought before the Dáil. I ask the Minister to explain the reason for that.
I hope that in the Minister's reply he will give some positive answers to the points I have raised.
