Kathleen O'Meara (Labour)

I am glad the Minister has responded. It was important to have some discussion on the issue before he formulated his proposed amendment. What he said about the admittance of responsible people for research purposes reflects the thinking of the legal profession that not everybody should be allowed into the court to observe what is going on.

Section 31(2) states clearly: "does not contain information which would enable the parties to the proceedings or any child to which the proceedings relate to be identified." In other words, even if a journalist was in court during a case, he or she could not identify the parties. Is that not still part of the legislation? I see where the Minister is coming from in this regard. We all know that in a small town people know other people's business. Therefore, in the case of divorce proceedings or whatever, the case could be reported without the parties being identified, but in such a manner that we would all know who was involved. I presume this is the Minister's concern with the current framework. That is fine but we must be careful not to go too far.

A major concern is that in the area of family law we do not know what is going on. Not only the legal practitioners do not know what is going on in terms of case law, but the public does not know what is going on. Justice is not seen to be done. One of the fundamental principles of justice is that it must be seen to be done. If everything operates behind closed doors, we operate purely on the basis of anecdotal evidence. One group in the community, a certain group of fathers, believe they are hard done by and are the subject of injustice. This is unsatisfactory.

The framework arrived at must meet the concerns not only of the legal profession and public figures but also those of the broader community and the corpus of law must be recorded and reported. We referred already to a register in terms of the decisions of the court in personal injuries cases. I suggest the Courts Service could take on board the publishing of the relevant legal decisions in a manner that would provide easy access to them by legal practitioners, whether on the Internet or hard copy. Perhaps that would be helpful.

I also wish to comment on the issue of barring orders and domestic violence, which are also covered by the in camera rule. There are concerns in this area with regard to the inconsistency with which the law is implemented. At the same time children, women and families must be protected. We must be careful when legislating in this area.

As a former journalist I have an interest in how this relates to journalism. We had an excellent discussion in the House previously on the issue of the Press Council. There is a code of practice for the reporting of family law cases in the context of the in camera rule. Has the Minister had any discussions with the National Union of Journalists on this matter? If not, does he think such discussions would be useful? There appears to be an opinion abroad that no journalist can be trusted with a family law case. One lawyer said to me it would be fine if a journalist was from The Irish Times and that journalist could be allowed into the court, but not one from the Daily Star. Both the Minister and I know that distinction cannot be made. However, we should not completely rule out journalistic media coverage of the area. Is it possible to arrive at a framework which it is possible to implement and which protects the privacy of the individual and of the children involved, etc, but which also meets the important principle of justice being done in public so that the broader community know what is going on in our courts?