Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Briefly in reply, I welcome the Minister of State's remarks. Indeed, I welcomed the view taken by the Minister for Justice at the event I referred to earlier but it is not good enough that a Department of State, which is part of a collective Government, should leave us in a position whereby the Director of Public Prosecutions conducted a review, recommended the ending of these cutbacks but nothing has been done for more than ten years now. It simply is not good enough. It suggests that there is an agenda in the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery, and Reform against barristers. It can only come down to some civil servants, and they must be senior, who have taken the view that barristers can take a hammering without knowing what it is like to be a junior barrister starting off in one's first year and being given €16 to €20 to attend a District Court to conduct a criminal case. One would not get anybody to visit one's house for that kind of money, except a tax collector. It is about time that whoever is responsible for driving this agenda in the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery, and Reform looks in the mirror and does the decent thing. It is also about time that the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, to whom I wrote in July, faced up to his obligations.