Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 4, to delete lines 1 to 4.

Amendment No. 1 seeks to amend section 2 of the Bill, on page 4. Section 2 inserts a new section 6A into the Coroners Act 1962, as amended, and makes a number of provisions.

I welcome this Bill. It contains important parts. The Bill acknowledges the fact that a sunset clause will come in on 21 February regarding Dublin coroners. In particular, that needs to be addressed. I have no difficulty with that. The Bill goes well beyond what it needs to do. The Bill, and many members here will have received correspondence from the Coroners Society of Ireland in this regard, makes fairly fundamental changes to the way the coronial system will operate in Ireland. That is why I have tabled my amendments.

Amendment No. 1 seeks to delete paragraph (c) of section 2, which would insert a new subsection 6B in section 6A of the 1962 Act, as amended. That creates a situation where the Dublin coroner will become a civil servant, with which I have a real problem. The coronial service, as it exists, is a quasi-judicial function. The service conducts inquiries into deaths in Ireland. It is very important that the service has the independence of function of a quasi-judicial personage rather than that of the Civil Service. The Minister, in his Second Stage speech, said very clearly that the legal advice is that this does not impinge on their independence. I do not have a difficulty with the legality of it, but I have a difficulty with the practicality of it. The reality is that a civil servant has a line manager. Whether that person is a principal officer or more senior, so an assistant secretary or whatever, a civil servant is still answerable to someone in a line management capacity in a way that a judicial or quasi-judicial figure is not, and should not be. If we want to maintain a situation where we have a coronial system that is based on quasi-judicial functioning, we cannot have those people acting as civil servants where they are in a management structure and, therefore, answerable to an individual. That is why I propose deleting the proposed subsection 6B, which would make them into civil servants. The reality is that this Bill will make the coronial service into a mere administrative function within a Department. I do not think that is the right thing for the coroner service. I think the coroner service does much more than that and should not be in a situation where it is, and I do not want to say it, "reduced to an administrative function", because there are lots of administrative functions that take place. Where we are talking about an inquisition or an inquiry, it is important that it has a judicial or quasi-judicial function to it.

Amendment No. 2 seeks to delete paragraph (d) of section 2. Again, this paragraph proposes to insert into section 6A of the 1962 Act a new subsection 6C, which deals exclusively with the Dublin coroner, if I have read it correctly. Again, not all coronial districts are the same and some of them are much busier. Obviously the Dublin coroner is the busiest. It deals with the largest number of deaths. It also deals with the fact that the number of deaths being reported has increased hugely in the last number of years, particularly since the 2019 Act, where now, as I understand it, 70% of deaths in the State are reported to a coroner.That is an enormous increase in the volume of work coroners do in districts throughout the country, not just in Dublin, although Dublin obviously takes the bulk of that because there are more people in Dublin and more hospitals and prisons. These are the institutions that often necessitate a coroner's inquiry and as there are more of them in Dublin than in any other district, the Dublin coroner is far and away the busiest coroner.

One of the reasons this Bill has come about is because we have put in place special systems to create deputy coroners and resources to back up the Dublin coroner in order that there will not be a backlog and the work will be done. We know there is a huge backlog and that other systems that are not dealt with in this Bill are creating that problem, including, for example, a lack of pathologists, toxicologists and other background support staff who allow coroners to do their job. As I said on Second Stage, I would much rather see this Bill dealing with those issues than trying to restructure the service.

There is a difficulty in that there is an attempt in this Bill to unilaterally change the terms of conditions of people who are currently coroners. Maybe that is not a problem. Maybe those people will be happy to do that or maybe they will not, and I do not know. However, it is likely to create a problem, particularly where, as I understand it, the current Dublin coroner is not in fact the Dublin coroner but the Cork coroner, who is sitting in that position on an interim or temporary basis, although I am not sure exactly how the appointments work. If, for example, that coroner were to return to Cork, where the person who replaced her is now the acting coroner, that person would be dispossessed of a job. What this Bill does not envisage at all is the impact on individuals who are doing the work of coroners around the country and it does not envisage that those people might well challenge the unilateral change in their personal circumstances.

I am not here to argue for the terms and conditions of coroners. The primary objection I have is the change of the role from one that is quasi-judicial to one that is essentially administrative and part of the Civil Service. That is why I am also proposing the deletion of subsection (d).

Amendment No. 5 is also included in this grouping. It is an amendment to section 10, which is consequential on the amendments I am suggesting here insofar as there is a reference later in the Bill to removing section 15 of the 1962 Act. The Bill states at subsection (1): “Subject to subsection (5) and section 6A(6E)...” Subsection (6E) is created by one of the amendments and I am simply suggesting that that be taken out, so it is consequential on amendment No. 2.

I propose the amendments because the difficulty with this Bill is that, although it does important things from a time-sensitive perspective, it also does more than that, and the phrase “more than that” is the problem. It is going to change the way our coronial system works. It is a system that works very well at the moment and one that I do not think needs to be changed. The changes suggested in this Bill are retrograde and will damage the validity of the system and the faith that people have in the coronial system at the moment.