Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is very welcome to the House. I also welcome this Bill, concerning which I will touch on a few points, one relating to family law and the in camera rule. My concern is that this needs to be handled very carefully and the reason I say this comes from my own experience. As a legal practitioner, unfortunately I had to deal with two suicides, one coming 24 hours before an application for a barring order was heard. The person was due at a District Court hearing on a Wednesday but committed suicide the night before the barring order application. For that reason I am very concerned, because it is already a traumatic experience for people to be in court on a matter of family law, let alone having to face an additional worry about the in camera ruling. It is important the message should go out that it is only in exceptional circumstances a hearing would be opened up. The impression should not go out that every bit of information will be put into the public domain. We should be very careful in how the Bill is dealt with and how information is given to the media in regard to this issue. It is very important that people do not read it the wrong way.

I refer to the increase in the court limits which, as my colleague, Senator O'Donovan, noted, are welcome. The Minister referred to the 2002 Act, which allowed the increases to go higher than the figures he gave, but in the meantime the level of damages has actually come down. The figures the Minister suggested offer the right balance and I welcome that change.

The one area we need to examine is a problem we face in terms of the whole legal profession - the great changes that have occurred in the past four to five years in the work available within the profession and the great change in the need for processing this and bringing matters to a conclusion. I raise this in regard to the current time taken for dealing with the assessment of legal costs in the High Court. In fairness to both Taxing Masters, there is an enormous volume of work to be done. However, there is a problem. If I set down a bill of costs for taxation in a High Court today it will be October before it can be dealt with. This is at a time when people are under financial pressure in all walks of life and people in the legal profession are also under pressure. I realise this is not something the Minister can deal with immediately but we need to look at how to deal with it. The increase in jurisdiction in the coming three to four years will decrease the demand on matters being sent to the Taxing Master in the High Court, but in the intervening period there will be a substantial delay and we should see if we can find a solution to that problem and whether there is scope for same.

I apologise for mentioning this but even in cases where the State is on the other side, my understanding from colleagues is that the State will not enter into negotiations in regard to the bill of costs until the matter is listed for taxation. Perhaps we could take a great amount of work in that area away from the responsibility of the Taxing Masters if the State was prepared to enter into negotiations at a much earlier stage.

One area the Bill does not deal with is one we must return to, namely, the whole area of medical negligence where there has not been much reform in the past ten years. Costs in that area are still extremely high and there is a significant problem which must be dealt with by putting in place a better system. We have talked about payments in cases of medical negligence that would not come as one lump sum, which is something the Minister favours. That must be considered and we should do so at an early date.

The creation of a civil court of appeal is extremely important. The problem is that a large number of family law matters end up in the Supreme Court where they really do not belong. In addition, I understand there may be lay litigants on one or even both sides of cases that end up in the Supreme Court. If there was a court of civil appeal it could deal with much of that work. although a referendum would be needed. The Supreme Court was set up to deal with major areas of law but has been taken up with these matters. It could be used far more effectively and we would not have the great delays that now exist if there was a court of civil appeal. I realise the Minister is working on this but it is important to have a proposal introduced at the earliest date possible.