Results 17,581-17,600 of 18,736 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages. (15 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: The Senator has not been prejudiced by her absence. In fact, things have gone better than she might have expected.

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages. (15 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: This section provides that the court in a personal injury action may, upon the application of a party to the action, direct that a person, other than the party to the action or an expert witness, who it is intended will be called to give evidence at the trial of the action, shall not attend the trial until he or she is called to give evidence. Where a court gives a direction under subsection...

Seanad: Civil Liability and Courts Bill 2004: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages. (15 Jun 2004)

Michael McDowell: The purpose of this section is to amend section 46 of the Courts and Court Officers Act 2002, which has not been brought into operation, to remove the possibility of judges being required to deliver judgments within prescribed periods but to preserve the requirement for a register of reserved judgments which is accessible to the public. I have concerns that section 46 as it stands might be...

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...

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

Michael McDowell: No. What the Law Society said is correct. It is turning the clock back, since all pleadings used to be lodged in files, and it was considered that, in most cases, that was a waste of time as the interested parties could be relied on to keep an eye on each other in any litigation. However, in the context of this new, fairly tough regime whereby, if one makes a false claim or swears a false...

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

Michael McDowell: It is broken.