The Gazette 1989

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GAZETTE JANUARY 1989
In
this
Issue
The Legal Implications of 1992 5
Diary 15
Sources of European
Community Law:
Multi Disciplinary Partnerships 24
1992 — Completing the
Internal Market 27
Executive Editor:
Mary Gaynor
Committee:
Geraldine Clarke, Chairman
Eamonn G. Hall, Vice-Chairman
John F. Buckley
Gary Byrne
Timothy Dalton
Charles R. M. Meredith
Daire Murphy
John Schutte
Advertising:
Liam O hOisin, Telephone: 305236
307860
Printing:
Turner's Printing Co. Ltd., Longford.
The views expressed in this publication,
save where otherwise indicated, are the
views of the contributors and not
necessarily the views of the Council of
Ihe Society.
The appearance of an advertisement in
this publication does not necessarily
indicate approval by the Society for the
Product or service advertised.
Published at Blackhall Place, Dublin 7.
Tel.: 710711. Telex: 31219. Fax: 710704.
GAZETTE INCORPORATE D
LAW SOCIETY
OF IRELAND
Vol.83 No. 1Januar y 198
V i e w p o i n ts
EURPHORIA
The publication last month of a
comprehensive survey of '1992
Readiness' within Irish industry
conducted by The Marketing Ins-
titute is profoundly disturbing. It
provides hard statistical evidence,
firstly, that Irish industry is highly
aware of 1992, secondly, is
extremely optimistic about it and
thirdly has no proper basis for this
optimism.
The survey, conducted in
October 1988, shows 74% of the
Chief Executives questioned viewed
the likely impact of 1992 as
'favourable', 10% thought it could
go 'either way' and only 14%
believed it would be 'unfavourable'.
The most revealing responses,
however, were those which
showed that 77% of companies
had made no assessment whatso-
ever of the impact which 1992
would have on them and indeed
40% went on to state that they did
not even plan to do this in the
future.
More worrying still was the fact
that the replies showed a wide-
spread and deep misunderstanding
of what 1992 was all about. The
research concluded that there was
a situation of "dangerous com-
placency". There is a high
awareness of 1992 but not of what
it means. Worse, there is a belief
that it means something different
from what it really does.
If we were to follow the Govern-
ment into word play we could say
that 'Europen' has led to a
dangerous 'Eurphoria'.
There is a strong argument to be
made that 1992 will be anything
but an unmixed blessing for Irish
industry. Whatever the balance of
benefits and threats of 1992 may
be, however, there can be no
questioning the need to address
the issue and prepare for it. Every
business in the country has
solicitors who advise it. The legal
profession has not played a
sufficient role to date in urging its
commercial clients, on whose
continued economic health the
profession depends, to assess the
impact of the internal markét
programme in the case of each
individual company.
The company solicitor, indeed,
has an active role to play in that
assessment and must fully familiar-
ise himself with the huge changes
which Europe is currently causing
to the legal climate in which
industry must compete.
As Peter Sutherland points out
elsewhere in this Gazette, the 1992
Program, indeed the whole European
integration process, is composed of
law and it behoves all lawyers to
master it and bring it to the
attention of their clients.
If this does not occur soon, then
a new word may have to be coined
and addressed to both Irish
industry and the legal profession -
'Eurlosingout'! •
CHILD ABDUCTION
A number of recent cases which
involved the alleged abduction of
children either from or to Ireland by
estranged parents has highlighted
the absence of any proper legal
structure governing such cases.
In 1985 the Law Reform
Commission recommended that
Ireland should adhere to the Hague
Convention on the Civil Aspects of
International Child Abduction but
action does not appear to be
imminent. At that time the
Department of Justice was also
considering Ireland's adherence to
a Council of Europe Convention on
Recognition and Enforcement of
Decisions Concerning Custody of
Children and Restoration of
custody of children. Ireland actually
signed this convention subject to
ratification in 1980. It is notorious
that Ireland's record of ratification
of International Conventions is
deplorable though occasionally this
may be justified by the fact that
some of the Conventions have
found little support elsewhere.
Contd. on pago B
3