That is not what the legislation states. This is a very serious issue. It is a matter of policy. In effect, a deal was done between the Department and the Law Society, as we all know, because there is a suggestion that a group of solicitors may be encouraging people to litigate personal injury actions in spurious circumstances. I do not know if that is true. If it is true and people are being encouraged to take spurious actions, they will lose them and action may, in certain circumstances, be taken against the solicitor for negligent advice. However, the Bill covers more than that and I will outline a number of areas about which I am concerned.
For example, regarding the hepatitis C issue, Positive Action, when it was getting organised and trying to consider what legal action was available to it, held public meetings. As I had a strong view about the position the women were in and the fact that I was in the public eye, I considered that it might not be appropriate for me to go along to that meeting to offer legal advice. Other solicitors voluntarily offered advice at a meeting which took place a number of years ago. At least one of the law firms that sent a solicitor to that meeting ended up acting for a number of people. I may be wrong about that, but I am not criticising them.
There are people who suffered physical and sexual abuse while in institutional care. They have held public meetings and asked individual solicitors acting for different people to come along and address the meetings so that there would be an informed person there to answer questions. I recall attending a meeting of that nature in Liberty Hall. Is it suggested that if one volunteers one's services and goes along to that type of meeting to address the questions of people who are confused, concerned and distressed about their situation and their legal rights - one is delivering a lecture if one speaks for five or ten minutes and one answers questions - that one will be accused of engaging in a degree of self-promotion? Are we suggesting that groups seeking information cannot have a solicitor in attendance, voluntarily and without fees? Will they have to recruit somebody and pay them? This raises very serious issues.
It is not unusual when litigation for personal injury takes place in our courts - it has happened on occasion when people have suffered appalling injuries resulting in them becoming paraplegics - and the acting solicitor succeeds in getting a very high award for damages for the injured person that the lawyer gives interviews to the media explaining what happened to the person. The solicitor may regard it as being in the public interest to do this so that if another person received a similar injury, he or she would be aware of his or her legal rights.
In trying to end the type of advertising that brings the solicitors' profession into disrepute or that is in bad taste or misleading - nobody wants that type of advertising - we are trying to ban people from exercising their right to freedom of expression to give information to groups, the community or to conduct interviews on television. That is not only in violation of the Constitution, but also in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. This is a serious issue. I am not raising it as a party political issue or as a means to create some form of political contest between us. However, there is a danger that legislation designed to cure one problem might go as far as to create a major problem of a nature never before seen in the State in the context of giving interviews or writing articles, which are commonplace occurrences and which no one would, at present, regard as inappropriate.