Limerick East): The object of this Bill is to enable part of the funds of suitors vested in the Accountant of the Courts of Justice to be withdrawn and applied for the various purposes indicated in sections 3 and 4 of the Bill.
The funds of suitors are the cash and securities belonging to suitors and other persons which have been transferred to or paid into or deposited with the High Court. They consist of moneys or investments transferred or paid into or deposited in court either under the provisions of one or other of a number of statutes (for example the Auctioneers and House Agents Act, 1947), or under Rules of Court (for example Order 22 which provides for the lodgment of a sum of money in satisfaction of a claim before or at the time of the delivery of the defence in certain types of action), or under some judgment or order of the court made in an administration suit or in some other form of proceeding, or in the form of dividends or interest on court investments or bank deposits.
In the ordinary way these funds may be used only for the benefit of those entitled to them. However, a small proportion of the funds is represented by unclaimed balances and dividends which have been accumulating over a long period — some as long as two centuries. These are known as dormant funds and may be defined more precisely as balances in accounts in the funds of suitors which have not been active for 15 years or more. I should explain that these funds are essentially a phenomenon of the past and that funds do not become dormant in recent times to any significant extent. The funds of suitors are under the control of the High Court and subject to that control are managed by, and stand in the name of, the Accountant of the Courts of Justice.
The total liability of the accountant in respect of all funds of suitors on 30 September 1983 — the latest date for which there are published figures — was just over £98,621,000. Assets held by the accountant, consisting of cash and securities, amounted to £97,343,000 on that date. The difference between the amount of liabilities and assets on hands on 30 September 1983 — £1,278,000 — represents the aggregate of the moneys which have been withdrawn from the funds of suitors over the past 200 years under the authority of various Acts of the Parliament of Ireland, the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the Oireachtas. All these Acts indemnified suitors for any loss which they might sustain by reason of the withdrawals, and these indemnities are backed by the Central Fund.
Moneys withdrawn from the funds of suitors under Acts passed before the establishment of the Oireachtas were applied for such purposes as building and improving the Courts of Justice and enlarging the Law Library. Coming up to modern times, withdrawals from the funds were authorised by the Oireachtas in 1959, 1963 and in 1966 as follows:
The Funds of Suitors Act, 1959, enabled a total of £323,000 to be withdrawn for three purposes, namely, to provide assistance towards the rebuilding of the Abbey Theatre, to finance repair and renovation of the buildings of the Society of King's Inns and to provide for the creation of a fund for the maintenance of the society's library.
The Funds of Suitors Act, 1963 authorised the release of a sum of £50,000 to help finance the rebuilding of the Cork Opera House.
The Funds of Suitors Act, 1966 authorised the release of £450,000 to help finance the cost of rebuilding the Abbey Theatre and the completion of the Cork Opera House.
On 31 May 1984, assets consisting of cash on deposit and securities to the total nominal value of £2,817,000 remained in the dormant accounts. The market value of these assets is marginally higher.
The money to be withdrawn under the Bill will be channelled through the current cash account which is maintained by the accountant of the High Court in the Bank of Ireland to meet all his cash liabilities to suitors on foot of both dormant and live accounts. As in the case of previous withdrawals, the Bill affords a complete indeminity to suitors protecting them from any possible loss resulting from the withdrawal of funds under the provisions of this Bill. I should add that nothing that is proposed in the Bill will affect the rights or the ability of suitors to make claim to any of the dormant funds that it is proposed to withdraw.
Before I turn to the objects for which the money would be used, I feel I should make it clear that certain provisions in the Bill are intended to honour commitments given by previous administrations. These are the provisions in relation to the funding of work needed for the repair and renovation of the King's Inns building, and the provision of funds for Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann. In particular the commitment regarding the King's Inns work was given expression to in the Funds of Suitors Bill, 1981, which passed all stages in Seanad Éireann on 8 October 1981, before it lapsed on the dissolution of the last Dáil.
The Taoiseach already announced on 27 February the decision to allocate £600,000 for capital projects in the arts field from the funds that are to be withdrawn under the provisions of the Bill. During the proceedings on the Bill in the Dáil, the Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, in whose area of responsibility the matter comes, indicated that a sum of £100,000 from this amount has been designated towards the cost of repair and renovation of the premises of the Royal Irish Academy of Music at Westland Row. He said the remaining £500,000 will be used to help fund capital projects for a capital programme for the arts proposed by the Arts Council and that the actual management of the additional funds will be delegated to the Arts Council. He said as reported at columns 1311 and 1312 of the Official Report for 20 June 1984, that an amount of work has still to be done before a detailed announcement can be made about the allocation of the available funds.
As I have mentioned, the proposal to provide funds needed for repair and renovation work on the King's Inns building is not new. The work involved is considered to be essential for the preservation of the building. The King's Inns building was the last work in Dublin of James Gandon, the architect who designed the Custom House, the Four Courts, the Military Infirmary and the Westmoreland Street facade of the Bank of Ireland. The south wing of the building together with the joint section under the cupola is owned by the State and is occupied by the Registry of Deeds. Altogether the State owns and occupies about two-thirds of the composite King's Inns building. There is no physical separation between the property owned by the State and the property owned by the Society of King's Inns.
There is unanimity amongst those best qualified to judge, that the building which houses the King's Inns and Registry of Deeds is a minor classic and one of the finest buildings of its kind in Dublin. The part of it which is not owned by the State is listed as a building to be preserved, under the Dublin City Development Plan, 1980. It is a building of national significance and importance and must feature prominently in the architectural heritage of the nation. The part of the building which constitutes the King's Inns is used by the Society of King's Inns for the purpose of education and training barristers. Perhaps I should clarify that the society's library in Henrietta Street is not part of the building and is not involved in the present proposals.
Architectural examination of the King's Inns building in 1980, and of the adjoining Registry of Deeds building, revealed that the external stonework of both buildings is in a state of serious decay. The deterioration in the stonework arises from the age of the material, from atmospheric pollution and from the poor quality of the granite which was used in the building. The state of the stonework gives rise to a danger of falling masonry, and hoardings have been erected in places to protect the public from injury. Full repairs to the external stonework of the buildings were estimated in 1981 to cost £1,310,000.
The Government have accepted that the Society of King's Inns are not in a position to provide the funds needed to carry out the essential and substantial repair work needed to preserve the building which they occupy. Ordinary maintenance is, of course, another matter and I am informed that the society spent about £150,000 on maintenance and repair work on the building between 1970 and 1980. Accordingly, the Government decided it was necessary to provide, from public sources, the funds needed to preserve an artefact of exceptional historic and aesthetic interest which, on any standards, must rank in the forefront of the architectural heritage of the nation. Moreover, it is clear that further delays in carrying out the work that is needed would have the effect, at least, of making more expensive and extensive the work that would ultimately have to be done. It would place the future preservation of this particularly fine building at serious risk.
The work which will be financed under the Bill will be executed entirely under the control of the Office of Public Works. Accordingly no money will be paid to the Society of King's Inns under the Bill. The work involved consists mainly of replacing, refacing or repointing the granite stonework of the buildings and repairing the boundary walls, gates and railings surrounding them. The remainder is internal work which the Office of Public Works regard as essential for the preservation of both the King's Inns and Registry of Deeds buildings. It consists of rewiring and work needed to prevent the development of fungal infestation.
As I indicated earlier, the King's Inns benefited from the funds of suitors before in 1959. Under the Funds of Suitors Act, 1959 a total of £70,000 was paid to the trustees of the society. Of this, £25,000 was for the creation of an investment fund, and the application of the income thereof for the maintenance of the King's Inns Library, which is not involved in the current renovation project. The balance of £45,000 went to defray the cost of expenditure incurred in undertaking work of renovation and repair to the King's Inns building which is the subject of the present Bill. It has proved inadequate to finance renovation work carried out since 1959 but was never intended to cater for works of the kind now found to be necessary.
The provision of £300,000 for Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann is intended to help to defray part of the cost involved in the extension of their Cultúrlann at Monkstown, County Dublin, which was completed in 1983. The Minister for the Gaeltacht will be responsible for putting this provision of the Bill into effect. His Department already administer an annual grant payable to Comhaltas.
The provision of £100,000 for the Minister for Labour is to provide additional funding for the community, youth, recreational and employment programme, which is administered by the Department of Labour. That programme provides for the payment of capital grant assistance towards the provision of community recreational facilities on a nationwide scale. This is achieved by providing financial incentives to various local interest groups which include local authorities, voluntary community organisations, youth groups and vocational education committees. The position is that a number of community centres have found themselves in financial difficulties and the sum of £100,000 will be applied to these undertakings by way of an additional injection of cash to assist them in their fund-raising activities. The precise allocation of the funds has already been given by the Minister of State at the Department of Education during the Second Stage of the Bill in the Dáil, as reported at column 1312 of the Official Report for 20 June 1984.
I estimate that the balance of the funds available after the above payments have been made will be about £1.19 million. This residue would be spent in building a new Children's Court for the District Court in Dublin currently estimated to cost about £750,000 and, to the extent that funds remain after that, on other projects in the courts area for which the State has responsibility, and for civil legal aid.
In November 1981 the Children's Court was forced to evacuate its premises in Dublin Castle at very short notice because they were considered to be in a dangerous condition. The Dublin Castle accommodation was long regarded as deficient and unsatisfactory and more than ten years ago plans were prepared for improving the accommodation by internal rearrangement and the construction of an annex to the back of the building. These plans had to be abandoned, however. Following the evacuation from its former premises in Dublin Castle in 1981, the Dublin Children's Court has been located, temporarily, in the District Court, Morgan Place, which is quite unsuitable for the purpose. It does not provide adequate waiting facilities and is causing serious disruption for other courts in the location. It has meant the loss of one courtroom and justice's room to the District Court, which has adversely affected the disposal of other court business.
Extensive efforts by the OPW to find suitable accommodation on the market for the Children's Court failed and subsequent plans for the construction of a purpose-built children's court at a site owned by the State at Smithfield, Dublin, have had to be shelved due to lack of funds.
In these circumstances I am particularly pleased to be able to have the funds needed to carry out this important development made available under the provisions of this Bill. The plans for the new Children's Court are being drawn up at present in the light of the provisions in this Bill. They will provide generous waiting and consultation facilities, with conference and duty rooms for probation and welfare officers, so that all who are concerned with the welfare of children appearing before the courts will be adequately facilitated. The plans will include separate waiting areas for gardaí, witnesses and for members of the public. There will be two courtrooms and justices' rooms. In addition to two consultation and two welfare officers' rooms, a retiring room for solicitors will be provided.
As to the question of what other court projects might be financed from the remaining funds, I think that until such time as the priority item, that is the building of the new Children's Court, has been completed, and the final cost of that project is known, it would be unrealistic to speculate on what other projects might be included, though perhaps I should mention that under the law at present local authorities, and not the State, have responsibility for providing and maintaining court accommodation outside Dublin. It follows that court projects outside Dublin could not be financed under the provisions in this Bill, under present arrangements.
Perhaps I should emphasise one feature of this Bill which differs from previous Funds of Suitors legislation. The present Bill will authorise the disposal of all but a nominal amount of 1 per cent of the capital assets in the dormant accounts of the funds of suitors — and not merely the cash in these funds, to which previous withdrawals were confined. In practical terms this may involve retaining only about £28,000 of the value of the investments contained in these accounts. This residue is necessary to enable any successful future claim on the dormant funds to be valued accurately. However, the amount does not affect the ability of the Accountant of the High Court to meet any such future claim because of the inclusion in the Bill of the usual indemnity provision in favour of suitors. Incidentally the incidence of such claims is rare. I understand that claims totalling about £1,400 were paid out of dormant funds in the last decade.
The consent of the Chief Justice has been obtained to the withdrawal of the moneys which the Government propose to use for the purposes indicated in this Bill, as this involves the withdrawal of moneys which come, at present, within the sole jurisdiction of the courts.
Section 2 of the Bill is the provision which enables the Accountant of the High Court to realise the existing investments in the dormant accounts subject to the retention of stock to the value of 1 per cent of these investments for the purpose that I have mentioned already.
Section 3 is the provision which enables cash in the funds of suitors to be devoted to the various purposes that I have mentioned. As in the case of previous withdrawals from the funds of suitors, section 5 affords a complete indemnity to suitors against any loss they might otherwise sustain as a result of the enactment of the proposed legislation.
Section 4 is provision to extend, temporarily, the powers of the Commissioners of Public Works, to carry out work on the King's Inns, which is not a public building. Under existing legislation the Commissioners of Public Works are empowered to undertake work only in relation to public buildings and the extended powers which the Bill confers relate exclusively to work on the King's Inns and will expire, at the latest, after five years. The provision also restricts the amount which the commissioners may expend on this work to the amount of £600,000 provided under section 3 of this Bill.
The release of funds from the courts accounts is not equivalent to authorising the spending of the taxpayers' money, but it seems to me to call for the same level of responsibility and I am satisfied that each one of the proposals to which this money will be devoted is most deserving of immediate assistance and that it is necessary that the dormant funds of suitors should be used in the ways proposed in this Bill. Were it not for the availability of these funds at the present time I have little doubt that demands on the Exchequer for finance to meet the cost of the various proposals that will be financed through the withdrawal of these funds would be even greater.
I commend the Bill to the House and ask that it be given a Second Reading.