Joe O'Toole (Independent)

A number of important points have been raised which require our consideration, for example, the positions of the Law Society and the Bar Council and the question of earning a living. There is no problem in a person earning a living but it breeds cynicism in me if I receive a multi-page document from one of those bodies explaining why this Bill should be rejected, without having Senator Tuffy's honesty and saying they also have a right to earn a living. I disagree with the vintners in their stand on the ban on smoking in the workplace but at least they put it up straight in front of us. There is no mention in any of the submissions from the Law Society or the Bar Council about earning a living. That is where the cynicism arises.

The other issue regarding the legal profession is that the PIAB spent a great deal of time trying to get advice from significant bodies of these people and they would not engage. They adopted a head in the sand policy to avoid addressing it. I am long enough in public life to have grown accustomed to being criticised every day but some of the comments members of the legal profession have made about members of the PIAB and the people behind it are unprintable. In that situation, it is up to people like me to recognise the validity of the case people make on questions of human rights and otherwise and that most lawyers do a job for their clients and, in many cases, go out on a limb and do it for nothing. That is the other side of the story of the ambulance chasers and is the case in any profession.

This is a question of making a distinction, which is easily made. In response to Senator Tuffy, it is the difference between lobbying and advocacy. I have often been guilty on this count and have had to pull myself up, or others had to do so, when I represented teachers, to ask whether I was making the case for pupils or teachers. In a representational capacity, it is very easy to fall on the wrong side of that line, failing to distinguish between advocacy and lobbying. This is the issue for the Law Society. I have no objection to the society. If the members of the PIAB have no involvement in deciding who should be a member of the board and if the Government or the Minister decides to appoint a lawyer, I will not argue against that. However, more support might have been given to this concept at an earlier stage.

Independent Newspapers carried a story last week about a judge who reprimanded a legal team for advising a client in a claim about whether he could play golf, which no doubt many people read. That is the kind of case, which occurs daily, with which we are trying to deal. On the other hand, we are also trying to deal with people who want to look after their clients fairly. I am not defending insurance companies; I have spent most of my life fighting them and in the course of this debate will continue to do so but the people who oppose them are not necessarily cleaner than clean, as we know. Senator Tuffy gave an example of the cheque from which the lawyer takes his or her fee before passing it to the claimant. The Law Society could have dealt with these issues before now and many issues that could have been dealt with over the years have not been resolved. There is a general perception that large sums of money are flowing through all this and that it is not just about making a living but about the rest of us paying for people to make a living in an unfair way. It is not intended to stop people earning a good living or making a profit.

I and all the members of the board receive letters from people who could not afford to start a business, those running small businesses who could not afford to stay open because they could not get insurance or are running businesses without insurance and losing sleep as a result. From 1 June 2004, the PIAB will deal with motor insurance and will receive letters from people saying that a young driver in the family cannot afford to pay for insurance. These cases have been outlined previously in this House and this is an attempt to deal with them. If the Law Society nominates someone who is committed to working on this and making it work, I have no great difficulty. I am not jumping up and down with enthusiasm as the society has not shown any great support for this to date. Perhaps it will in the future. I agree, however, with Senator Maurice Hayes' point about the capacity of a person nominated. The Chairman of the PIAB, Ms Dorothea Dowling, has reiterated to the board that its members are not there as delegates or representatives, they are nominated by virtue of their backgrounds and are expected to bring their experience to bear while acting for the board, not to be there as advocates for one point of view or another. If they are perceived to be acting in that way, the process will fall apart. That is not a difficult distinction. Fair-minded people can go in with a job to do, focus on that job and do it well.