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4. The right of the press to be present and to report
the proceedings should be abolished.
5. All the assets of the father should be made liable
in default of payment of the weekly sum or of the
lump sum.
6. Illegitimate children should have equal rights as
legitimate children with regards to succession.
7. Penalties for non-disclosure of change of address
should be raised to £50 and/or six months' imprison-
ment.
8. Legal aid should be available to both parties if
requested.
9. Proper statistics should be recorded and be pub-
lished annually.
Statutes :
Married Women (Maintenance in case of
Desertion) Act, 1886. Courts Act, 1971.
Recommendations :
1. Proper statistics to be recorded.
2. Custody of children to be provided for.
3. Some division of the property or at least security
of tenure to be granted to the wife.
4. Attachment of income and other forms of assets.
5. Legal aid to be available to both parties.
6. The age of a child for which maintenance is
obainable under this Order should be raised from 16
to 18 years.
One of the many case histories dealt with by
FL.A.C. : Mrs. E. married E. when they were both very
young. They had a child almost immediately. They
lived with E.'s parents and E.'s six sisters. Mrs. E. did
not get on well with his family. They disapproved of
her, and kept fighting with her. On several occasions,
they beat her up.
They told her that her husband's affairs were theirs,
and not hers. They threatened her each time she sug-
gested he get a job. (The family supported her hus-
band, and kept him supplied with drink and cigarettes).
Mrs. E. left after a severe beating by her husband's
sisters. She was forced to leave the child behind her.
When she returned with a friend to collect the child,
E. and one sister attacked her brutally again and she
had to leave without the child.
The husband's family regard the child as theirs, and
refuse to give her up to her mother. Apart from per-
suasion there is little the wife can do as she cannot
afford the expense of initiating a High Court action.
DUBUN SOLICITORS' BAR ASSOCIATION
FREE LEGAL AID ASSOCIATION
The Dublin Solicitors Bar Association which is the
Liaison Body between the Profession and FLAC has
received a request from FLAC for further volunteers
from members of the Profession to act as Solicitors on
FLAC's panel for attendance at Centres. Volunteers
will be asked to attend at a Centre in the evenings for
a period of about 2 hours to act as Adviser to the
Students who interview the people attending the
Centre. It is unlikely that a volunteer will be asked to
attend more often than once in every two months at a
Centre. In addition to attending at the Centres, mem-
bers may, from time to time, be asked to take charge
of cases which have originated in the Centre.
Members who are willing to join the FLAC panel
are asked to send their names to Mr. Thomas Jackson,
Junior, Orpen Franks & Co., 28 Burlington Road,
Dublin 4.
The need for enlarging the panel is due, not merely
to the establishment of further Centres, but also to the
considerable increase in the volume of work which
affects the existing Centres. The extent of the increase
and other details regarding FLAC's activities may be
gleaned from FLAC's first report which has just been
published and is available from FLAC at Ozanam
House 53 Mountjoy Square, Dublin 1. A subscription
of not less than 25p is requested for each copy of the
report. A summary of the Report appears in this issue.
MEETING WITH IRISH PERMANENT
BUILDING SOCIETY
At a recent meeting of the Council it was agreed
to ask the Council's Special Sub-Committee on Building
Societies to seek an interview with the Managing
Director of the Irish Permanent Building Society to
discuss with him the large number of complaints
which had been received from members in the Asso-
ciation's recent survey, with a view to reducing the
average length of time taken to process cases and the
number of cases in which delays occur.
Australian Law Books for Ireland
One hundred and twenty volumes of the Common-
wealth Law Reports were presented to the Chief Justice,
Mr. Justice O'Dalaigh, by the Australian Ambassador,
Mr. K. G. Brennan, in the conference room of the
Supreme Court yesterday.
The Ambassador said : "To the Irish judges who are
continuing in the work of their illustrious predecessors,
this working tool comes with the warm wishes of the
Australian people and Government."
The ambassador said that the Commonwealth Law
Reports recorded the important decisions of the High
Court of Australia, which was the highest court in
the country. Like the Supreme Court of Ireland, the
High Court of Australia had both Constitutional and
appellate jurisdiction and it was therefore hoped that
all its works might have relevance for the work of the
Supreme Court of Ireland.
He said it would not be possible to open these books
without coming across Irish names among the judges
and counsel. At one stage in the early days of the
court, there were two Irish-born judges out of six : Mr.
Justice Higgins, who was born in Newtownards and
Sir Frank Gavan Duffy, who was born in Dublin.
Exacting Standards
The Ambassador also congratulated Mr. Justice Fitz-
gerald on his appointment as Chief Justice. "There are
no more exacting standards to live up to than Irish
standards; but they are being transferred from one pair
of safe hands to another", he said.
Chief Justice O'Dalaigh asked the Ambassador to con-
vey the court's thanks to his Government for this
princely gift.
{The Irish Times,
22 December 1972.)
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