Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 7, line 11, after " 1961," to insert "THE COURTS ACT 1964,".

The purpose of amendment No. 8 is to permit personal service of documents by persons other than an official summons server, as an alternative to service by registered post, in proceedings in the District Court to which that section applies and in Circuit Court proceedings. The amendment will provide for personal service of any document by which proceedings in the District Court are instituted and any other document relating to such proceedings which is a notice, order or witness summons other than proceedings by way of summons in which the complainant is a member of the Garda Síochána, a Minister of State, an officer of such a Minister, the Attorney General or an officer of the Revenue Commissioners.

Amendment No. 8 is in response to concerns which have been expressed regarding the difficulties encountered by practitioners in complying with the current District Court and Circuit Court requirements applicable to the service of summons by persons other than the designated persons I have listed. A summons server is employed by the county registrar and paid per summons delivered. According to the Courts Service, which has responsibility for employment in this area, the position of summons server has more or less been phased out. As current servers are retiring, replacements are not being sought. In 2003, there were summons servers only in Clare, Cork, Donegal, Limerick, Meath and Roscommon. I have been told that at present only one summons server remains in position and in the absence of the availability of that summons server all documents to which the section relates may, as an initial option, only be served by registered post. Personal service is, therefore, at present effectively only available following an application for substituted service. This is in contrast to service of documents in the High Court and Supreme Court, where personal service of documents has been available since the enactment of the Courts Act 1971.

In many cases, notification by An Post of a failure to deliver a document by registered post may not be received by the serving party until several weeks after the attempt to deliver, by which time the application to which the document relates may have been made to the court on the assumption, supported by production of the registered post certificate, that service was effected. In such cases, a further application to the court is then required. The proposed amendment is a practical solution to this problem and would place service arrangements for such documents on the same footing, effectively, as those obtaining in the High Court and Supreme Court.

Amendment No. 14 relates to service of documents for the High Court and Supreme Court and will amend the 1971 Act. As with amendment No. 8, this provides a degree of "future proofing" to take account of future developments with regard to service of documents which can be dealt with by rules of court.

Amendment No. 1 is a technical amendment consequential on the acceptance of amendment No. 8.

See this speech in context