The Gazette 1946-49

provide for a fund to compensate clients for losses suffered as the result of solicitors' defalcations. At a special general meeting of the Society held on 2nd October, a scheme was submitted to the members of the Society, and a resolution was passed authorising the Council to ask the Minister for Justice to include in the Bill a section providing for the establishment of a Compensation Fund. A draft scheme has now been settled with the assistance of Counsel. The Minister has been asked to include in the Bill the necessary section to set up the Compensation Fund, and a draft of the proposed section will be submitted to him as soon as possible. The total number of defalcations by solicitors both as to number and amount of money involved is insignificant compared with the total number of practising solicitors and volume of money which passes through their hands year after year, and which is dealt with in a perfectly competent and trustworthy manner. The number of practising solicitors in the country at the present time is approximately 1,400, and the number has never been less than 1,000 at any time since 1922. The number of cases of defalcation by solicitors which has come before the Society since 1922 averages less than one-fifth of one per cent, of the number of solicitors in practice. For the year 1944-1945 the returns of the Revenue Commis sioners showed that the value of land and houses sold amounted to almost eleven million pounds. The greater part of this money passed through the hands of solicitors. When I tell ypu that during that year the total amount of money misappropriated by members of the profession in cases which came before the Statutory Committee was £20, you will realise how high is the credit of the average member of the profession. There are, however, isolated cases of the black sheep, which occur in every profession and it is to deal with the hardship arising as the result of cases that the Council propose to I have to inform you that the Council have presented a memorandum to the Department of Finance and to the Chairman of the Revenue Com missioners asking that the annual certificate duty payable by each solicitor should be abolished. The duty is at present £9 in the case of a Dublin solicitor and £6 in the case of a solicitor practising outside Dublin, with a remission of one-half of the duty in the case of a solicitor admitted less than three years. This special tax on solicitors was originally a war tax introduced by Pitt to meet the expenses incurred by Great Britain consequent on the American War of Independence. The circumstances which led to its adoption were of an almost acci- 35 establish the Compensation Fund. Solicitors' Annual Licence Duty

existing state of the law, there arc many matters affecting the interests of the profession in respect of which the Council at the present time can only make recommendations to the profession. Many of these matters may, when the Solicitors' Bill becomes law, be the subject of statutory regulations. The Council recently recommended to the profession that the practice of making a purchaser of property, whether by private treaty or by public auction, liable for an approval fee should be discontinued. The Council have also from time to time published recommendations with regard to such matters as search fees and similar matters. The Council look to the Bar Associations to adopt these recommenda tions, which are published from time to time in the Society's GAZETTE, and which are in the interests of the profession as a whole. The following is a list of the Bar Associations at present in existence so far as is known to the Society : Southern Law Association, Limerick Bar Associa tion, Galway Bar Association, Monaghan Bar Association, Cork West Bar Association, Mayo Bar Association, County Louth Bar Association, Carlow Bar Association, Sligo Bar Association, Wexford Bar Association, Meath Bar Association, Tipperary Bar Association, Kerry Law Society, Kildare Bar Association, Drogheda Solicitors, Association, Wicklow Bar Association, North Cork Law Association, Dublin Solicitors' Bar Associa tion, Waterford Law Society, Cavan Solicitors' Association. Some of these associations are active and well-organised, others are inactive or dormant. In the following counties there are apparently no Bar Associations at all: Donegal, Leitrim, Roscommon, Longford, West- meath, part of Offaly, Leix, Kilkenny and Clare. I intend to suggest to the Council that a strong effort should be made, by propaganda and other methods, to encourage the formation of Bar Associa tions where none exist, and to revitalise the Bar Associations in areas where they have become dormant. There are several well-organised and healthy Bar Associations whose rules would repay careful study, and which might be adopted as the basis of rules in other areas. It might be possible to send representatives from the Council to certain provincial centres with a view to starting Bar Associations where none exist. Solicitors' Bill THE draft Solicitors' Bill was submitted to the Government in April, 1943, and since that date many conferences have been held between the Department of Justice and representatives of the Society on various matters arising out of the Bill. The Council of the Society gave long and careful consideration to a suggestion that the Bill should