John Bruton
Ceist:1 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Taoiseach the steps, if any, taken to implement the report of the Review Group on the State's legal offices; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3062/98]
Ceisteanna—Questions. - State Legal Offices.
The report of the review group was presented to the former Taoiseach by the former Attorney General on 26 June 1997, the day they both left office. Shortly after assuming office as Taoiseach I discussed the report with the Attorney General, arising from which I set in train a process of consultation with all Departments, the Offices of the Revenue Commissioners and the Director of Public Prosecutions to obtain their observations on the report with a view to having it considered by Government.
The Deputy will be aware that the report is a quite detailed document which raised fundamental issues for consideration concerning the State's legal offices and their relationship with Departments and offices. I can inform the House, however, that the Government has considered the report and agreed that it should be published.
The Government also accepted the recommendations of the review group for implementation as soon as possible and in particular to establish the proposed high-level study of proposals for a unified prosecution service, with a view to reporting both to Government through the Taoiseach within 12 months — the secretariat will be provided by the Institute of Public Administration; a separate statute law revision and consolidation unit within the Office of the Attorney General; and the proposed consultative committee to promote greater liaison and communications among the law offices on issues of common interest.
I have arranged that copies of the report be placed in the Oireachtas Library.
Is the Taoiseach aware that he said on 1 October the Government would be considering this matter shortly? Is it possible that this matter was considered by the Government only because this parliamentary question was tabled for today? Will the Taoiseach indicate what the high level study group will do that the previous Attorney General and the interdepartmental consultation, which the Taoiseach initiated on receipt of the report, have not already done? Is this high level study group not just a delaying tactic by those who, for one reason or another, may not be willing to make a decision to have a unified prosecution service?
I did not begin to examine the report until September. The report is a detailed document and, in fairness to the various Departments involved, they put it through an internal consultation process before furnishing their observations. That took a considerable period of time. This question has been on the Order Paper for some weeks and that has given me time to press on with it. The report of the review group is quite detailed, as I have already outlined, and we have accepted its recommendations. On the question of the unified prosecution service, the review group examined that issue but did not come to a conclusion on it. It stated that it did not have the expertise and the resources necessary to examine such a detailed matter. It stated also that the matter should be examined in more detail and that is what the group now intends to do.
This is a major issue and even a preliminary examination of it revealed that opinion was divided on what should happen. The proposal currently is that the DPP would deal with the Central Criminal Court, the Circuit Criminal Court and the Court of Criminal Appeal, and that the Garda would deal with the District Court in prosecution cases. This issue merits detailed examination and the group we intend to set up will do that. I will shortly announce the members who will form that group.
The report examined in detail the issue of the separate statute law revision and consolidation unit in the Attorney General's office. It argued that we should consolidate legislation on an ongoing basis and not just in cases such as that in 1981 when we had the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Bill or the more recent legislation on the 1967 Income Tax Act. We are going ahead with that process now.
I thank the Taoiseach for acknowledging the value of a parliamentary question and the fact that this matter has been examined because this parliamentary question was tabled. I hope that will be noted by those who next do a tally on the value obtained from parliamentary questions and the cost of every parliamentary question. Parliamentary questions often do a good job, and this one did. Will the Taoiseach tell the House the decisions, other than setting up further studies, the Government has taken on this report? What will change next week as a result of the Government's decisions from what happened last week?
As I stated in my reply, we have accepted the recommendations of the review group for implementation. Many of those recommendations will be useful in helping to make the offices more effective and efficient. The main one is that we will have a separate statute law revision and consolidation unit within the Office of the Attorney General. That will be a valuable unit in time to come. It will not change matters overnight but it will be important. We also intend to establish the consultative committee to promote greater liaison and communications between the law offices of the State as recommended in this report. They are the Office of the Attorney General, the chief legal officer of the State, the DPP's office and the Office of the Chief State Solicitor. The report outlines the mechanisms by which that should be done.
I am not sure I have got the answer to the question.
I hope the Deputy has.
We will see when we get the report.