Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

At the outset I should declare an interest insofar as I appear frequently in coroners' inquests as a barrister in this city and elsewhere in the country. I do not have any pecuniary interest in this legislation. It is just to say this is something of which I have a great deal of practical experience and understanding.

It is important to point out the value of the coronial service. What it does is something that is not dot done by any other branch of the State. There is no other body that carries out the function it carries out. What is also important to note is the fact it is an inquisitorial process rather than an adversarial one. So often in our criminal justice system and our court system it is one side pitted against the other. The coronial process is all about finding the truth of what happened, to whom it happened, how it happened, when it happened, etc. That inquisitorial process is much more akin to what we see in civil law systems in the Napoleonic Code on the Continent. It is actually very effective at getting to the truth in a way that is also sensitive to the needs of the people who are left behind by a person who is deceased - their family and friends, etc. - and is very effective at giving them a narrative as to what happened and investigating those issues without seeking to find fault with any party or anybody either civilly or criminally. Therefore, it works very well. That is because we have a body of coroners in Ireland who do that work diligently, professionally and conscientiously. They themselves have a great deal of experience and understanding of the system. We have the benefit in that regard of some case law but also a seminal text on the matter by the former Dublin county coroner, Dr. Brian Farrell, who was an authority on the subject and wrote the text on the issue, which guides us all today. However, the reality is this is a system for which we should be giving thanks all the time.

Anybody who has had the misfortune to interact with it as somebody who comes before those courts as a family member or friend understands the added value it brings and the importance of that process from the point of view of establishing truth in an independent non-partisan, non-adversarial way for the families of those who are deceased. Therefore, let there be no mistake that we value the importance of the coronial service and, particularly, at its heart, the coroners who do the work. As has been said already, it is not always pleasant work. It is always emotional and frequently very unpleasant to be dealing with death and the causes of death.

It is also worth mentioning juries in coroners' cases because we have ordinary citizens who give up their time to be part of the process and listen to it. As I said, I currently appear on the Stardust inquests. The jury there is doing an enormous job over a long number of months, with great attention to detail and great capacity to listen to a lot of very complex and lengthy evidence in that regard. Therefore, those people work as well.

As I said at the outset, this Bill is important. I recognise especially what the Bill does with regard to the Dublin coronial district in terms of solving the problem that is coming down the tracks in three or four weeks. That is entirely appropriate. I would recognise that, in the coronial district in Dublin at the moment, there are a number of coroners who are solving the problem. Because the senior coroner is dedicated to the Stardust inquest, the reality is the work is being spread between a number of people, and thank God for them because there would be a massive backlog without them. It is important to solve that problem and I recognise that. I also recognise what the Coroners Society of Ireland said about that being something we could do in a Bill other than this Bill, because this Bill does so much more than that. However, I recognise the importance of the provisions relating to the Dublin district in terms of dealing with the sunset clause that is coming with regard to 24 February.

That said, there are a number of issues that arise. The first is that although the Minister of State detailed in his speech that the Minister, Deputy McEntee, put this out to consultation in October, he said the Coroners Society was consulted in that regard or as part of the advisory committee. The letter it sent to us and conversations I have had with members of the Coroners Society would belie that fact and suggest very clearly the society did not know this Bill was coming or, certainly, that its members did not understand the content of this Bill was coming down the track.

The Bill does quite a lot. One of the things the Minister of State mentioned, for example, in the context of Dublin coroners is moving them from that quasi-judicial function, which is vitally independent, into a Civil Service role. The Minister of State said that will not affect their independence and I do not think there is necessarily a legal difficulty with that. However, I do think there is a process difficulty with that. There is an administrative difficulty with that. What we have in coroners are people who exercise a quasi-judicial function. It is very difficult to exercise a quasi-judicial function when a person is a civil servant because no matter how we slice or dice it, as a civil servant, a person has a boss and someone to whom he or she directly reports in the context of a managerial structure. How can that person really be totally independent and quasi-judicial if he or she is part of the Civil Service? While I recognise the enormous benefits we have from diligent public and civil servants in this country and the value they have added to our systems of government and our administration and the good they have done, I resist the civil servicisation, so to speak. I say that again with the greatest respect to the civil servants in the room.I resist the approach because I do not believe it is the right way to go. I do not believe in changing coroners who are exercising a quasi-judicial function very effectively into civil servants. I question how it affects their independence and do not believe it is the right answer. There is an old adage to the effect that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". If the system is working – we generally acknowledge that it is, which is not to say there is never a problem with a coroner's inquest – why are we changing it in this way and doing something with such a fundamental effect on the function of coroners instead of acknowledging that the system is working and that we should continue to allow it to function in the way it was? It is not clear whether the Civil Service aspect applies outside Dublin as well. From what the Minister of State's said, I gather it does not. Either way, however, the independence of coroners is paramount. The system is compromised by making them de factoemployees and civil servants. That is retrograde.

Similarly, the provisions in section 3, which inserts a new section 10A into the principal Act, limiting the terms of coroners, comprise a retrograde step. If a coroner is doing the job well and very effectively, why would we want him or her removed from his or her position? I do not have a problem with term limits because they allow a problem to be dealt with if it arises. I have no problem with a competitive process to reappoint the person in whatever way that is done. The proposed new section 10A(1) refers to a five-year term, with which I do not have a problem, but section 10A(2) states that a coroner may be reappointed for only one five-year term. What is the sense in that? If we know full well that a coroner is doing the job well and willing to do it over five, ten, 15, 20 or 30 years, why on earth would we put a term limit on him or her and say he or she cannot do the job anymore? That will not be the case with every corner. I do not have a problem with a coroner having to reapply for the position every five years, or whatever the period is, because that allows for the refreshing of the service where appropriate. However, the difficulty with the proposed section is that it prohibits somebody who is doing a good job from continuing to do it. I foresee circumstances in a couple of years in which we will not have people to do the job. We will have to say to corners, irrespective of their area, that they must leave their jobs, even though we have no plans to replace them, no route to do so and nobody in situto do so. We are creating a future problem with the proposed section 10A. I wonder whether the Minister of State will consider revising it in the context of the debates on this Bill, including on Committee Stage.

Among the things coroners complain about, which I have raised in this House before, are the delays, not in the Coroner Service but in the ancillary services that go with the inquests, such as pathology services. We have heard of families having to wait interminable periods – weeks or longer – for pathology results to come back. Meanwhile, there is a huge delay in getting post mortem examination results to families so they have an idea what happened to their loved one. I was contacted by the family of a Waterford man who were not only subjected to huge delays but who were also very badly treated by the service in terms of the sharing with them of information they were entitled to. Rather than making changes here that I feel are driven by an agenda to put everything into a nice little box that works for the purposes of forms in the Civil Service, we should prioritise dealing with the delays, recruiting more pathologists, making the services available and making more coroners available, if needed, to ensure no backlog in the system and that families of people deceased as a result of unfortunate incidents get inquest results and verdicts from coroners' juries faster, get death certificates signed faster and have a faster and more efficient administrative process, which can be burdensome in all circumstances but is generally done very well by the coronial service. Again, I say that with respect to the fact that the Civil Service does a great job. The coronial function is one that does not fit well into the circle that is created by a solely administrative position. It is a quasi-judicial function and it is carried out with excellence. It ain't broke and I do not think it needs to be fixed by the measures in this Bill. I would much rather see us revise some of the proposals, particularly regarding independence and time limits.