Seán Conlan (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, a comprehensive Bill containing many important provisions in a diverse number of areas. I make reference to the amendments the Bill makes in the area of civil liability for good samaritans and volunteers, which I welcome. However, we need clarification on the definitions of the actions that qualify as those of a good samaritan. The Bill requires that a person must be in serious and imminent danger or apparently in serious and imminent danger. Is this a subjective or an objective test? In the interest of fairness for the good samaritan, the test must be subjective. A situation that does not present a serious, imminent or apparently serious and imminent threat, could quickly change into one that does. Hence, the test should be that the good samaritan believes the threat to be serious and imminent or one that could quickly escalate into being serious and imminent. A possible flaw in the Bill is that it does not impose an obligation to provide reasonable assistance at the scene of an accident. There is no other provision in Irish law to require a person to come to the aid of another stranger. This Bill provides the opportunity to debate the introduction of some form of legal duty to assist, similar to that in many jurisdictions.

Part 5 of the Act concerns intoxicating liquor and codes of conduct. While the section is broadly welcome, I ask the Minister to publish and endorse a single code of conduct so that all people involved in the sale and supply of alcohol know the rules and where they stand. The last thing the industry needs is a variety of codes for display, sale, supply, advertising, promotion and marketing of alcohol being published by different organisations. This will lead only to confusion and people in the industry need to know their obligations under the code.

Part 7 of the Bill, concerning the amendments to the Bankruptcy Act 1998, is most welcome. I welcome the fact that legislation reduces the period under which a person can apply to the courts to be discharged from bankruptcy from 12 years to five years. As alluded to by Deputy Lawlor, this remains a long period by international standards. I see no reason it cannot be reduced further. I look forward to the publication next year of the personal insolvency Bill.

Part 8 concerns the maintenance of spouses and children. It is important that people live up to their responsibilities in respect of maintenance payments where orders are made. It is essential that a strong message is sent out that an unwillingness to pay should be discouraged by the threat of being found in contempt of court and the resultant possibility of imprisonment. The courts need a strong sanction in order to force people to live up to their responsibilities to their families. The Bill makes an important distinction between those who cannot pay and those who will not pay. The amendment of the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009 is to be greatly welcomed. Without this amendment, the flaw in the Act is that after 1 December 2012 major difficulties would be caused to many homeowners and landowners across the country.

Without the registered rights of way allowing access to their homes, their properties will be effectively worthless in future. The requirement to seek court orders to enable registration of uncontested easements and profits À prendre was an unnecessary financial burden on home owners in these recessionary times and, therefore, I welcome this change.

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