Results 1,101-1,120 of 18,726 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Written Answers — Residency Permits: Residency Permits (1 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: The person in question arrived in the State in October 2002 and made an application for asylum. His wife arrived in the State in July 2002, and made an asylum application. She had a child in September 2002. Both withdrew their asylum applications and applied for residency on the basis of parentage of an Irish born child. Following the decision of the Supreme Court in the cases of L & O, the...

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: Amendment No.1 is consequent upon amendment No. 36 and remedies what might be regarded as a deficiency in the Personal Injuries Assessment Board Act as passed by the Oireachtas at the end of last year. Section 54(1)(c) of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board Act provides that one of the principal functions of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board shall be to cause a cost benefit analysis...

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: It may save time if I reply at this point that I accept these are meritorious amendments and I thank the Senator for tabling them. I am in consultation with the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel as to the exact terms to be used to achieve that effect. I intend to incorporate the Senator's amendments in a Report Stage amendment or else to accept her amendments. I just want to make sure that...

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: I am grateful to Senator Terry for tabling an amendment on this matter. I have done a good deal of private soul searching on the issue since the Second Stage debate, which was constructive and fair-minded. As a member of the legal profession I must be careful not to be swayed by arguments which are ad hominem or come from a specific point of view to the exclusion of the public interest....

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: One might go to the High Court to get around the problems created by the proposal. It is relevant to point out that this Bill was published in discharge of the Government's decision to accept the MIAB report, which set out a substantial menu of proposed reforms. One of the proposed reforms involved the reduction of the limitation period and another related to the introduction of the letter of...

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: In response to Senator Henry's comments, it is important to stress that the limitation period is from the date of discoverability not of the injury done. If a medical practitioner commits an act of negligence such as attaching the incorrect internal organ to another, the clock begins to run from the date on which the patient becomes aware of the injury or ought reasonably to have been aware...

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: I thought amendments could be recommitted. Regardless of the procedure, I will not accept an adjournment of Committee Stage. This issue can be dealt with in a practical, robust way. I could have used the easy, shock tactic of accepting Senator Terry's amendment. She would then not be able to say she wants to think about it again. I want to progress the legislation in a considered manner and...

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: Disability in this context is not similar to disability in other contexts. It has a specific meaning in limitation law, which includes that "he or she is an infant, he or she is of unsound mind, he or she is a convict subject to the Forfeiture Act or that he or she is a victim of sexual abuse suffering from consequential psychological injury". If somebody suffered from a profound...

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: I have explained my position in this regard and I do not wish to pre-empt my position further by responding to this amendment. If I take an approach sympathetic to Senator Terry's original amendments on this matter, I would prefer not to start dividing the whole issue vertically. I am not tempted to deconstruct the Bill and provide a very complex law. A simple limitation period is the...

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: I am opposed to these amendments. The purpose of the section is to encourage those who are contemplating litigation to put the other side on notice at an early stage. If one is being sued for a minor road traffic accident, one is put on notice that this is happening at a time when it is reasonable for one to find the witnesses or put down in writing one's side of the story. In this way, one...

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: I am opposed to the amendment. The additional costs issue would be almost impossible to calculate. This is intended to be a significant incentive to legal advisers to litigants to get on with the job and to put them at risk if they do not send the letter of claim. How could one say extra costs were incurred by the letter arriving in month four rather than month three? One would need to be a...

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: I very much agree with Senators Maurice Hayes and Jim Walsh in this matter. It is terrible that doctors are brought to hang around courts for days on end and then told they are not wanted and sent away. That is a terrible aspect of current practice and could be so easily avoided by proper case management, to see if their presence is needed. Later provisions of the Bill deal with that issue....

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: Section 17 of the Interpretation Act 1937 gives powers to rules committees to make new rules in court where a jurisdiction is conferred on a court or an existing jurisdiction is extended or varied. That may cover the point the Senator is making, but if it does not, I will look at the matter between now and Report Stage. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: The statement of claim would not be, in my view, required after the new summons is served. It is for the Courts Service to amend its own rules and to provide that a separate statement of claim is not so required. These are rules of court and I do not think it is necessary for me by statute to start making provision for what should be in the rules.

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: I have great faith in the service and I believe it will recognise that it will be entirely redundant to require people to put the same material in two separate documents and that they should therefore amend the rules of court to state that the period for defence runs from the service of the new summons rather than the statement of claim, which is now involved in this type of litigation....

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: There is a rule of construction which is enshrined in the Latin maxim ad impossibile nemo tenetur — nobody will be required to do the impossible. If one does not know something, one cannot supply the information. I do not think a reasonable interpretation of the section could be that somebody was in breach of its provisions in respect of something they could not know. It is already implicit...

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: There is provision in the present rules of court for particulars arising out of any pleading to be served on the party who has served that pleading so a defendant is obliged to provide particulars of any matters stated in the defence. The Senator is going one stage further, that sometimes the plaintiff may require information from a defendant such as to their earning or so on. This is...

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: Such particulars can be sought under the existing rules of court. However, in very many cases, it is difficult for a defendant to particularise a claim of negligence on the part of a plaintiff. If, for instance, an employee puts his hand into a machine, the defendant, the employer, may say that he was guilty of negligence. However, if one asks him to say exactly why the employee was negligent...

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: Is botún soiléir é seo.

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed). (3 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: I have recently discussed this with the Law Society. The reason is to make it very clear what the pleadings were in a case and, in the next section, relating to the verifying affidavit. It is for the purpose of policing the false claims provision. When a plaintiff brings a claim against a defendant, there will be an official record of what he or she claimed and an official repository of the...