132 / 216
30
The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland
[December, 1942
the younger members, do not realise the
amount of work that is done on their behalf
by the Society, and more particularly by
the Council.
There are many Committees of the Council
and I may mention the following :—
The Finance Committee
The Parliamentary Committee
The Costs Committee
The Gazette Committee
The Circuit and District Courts
Committee
The Land Acts Committee
The Privileges Committee
as well as the Court of Examiners, and of
course, the Statutory Committee.
In addition to all these Committees, there
are from time to time special Committees
set up such as the recent Solicitors' Bill
Committee. Some of these Committees meet
monthly and some, of course, at longer
intervals. You will see in the Report that
it is stated that there were fifteen meetings
of the Council and thirty meetings of Com
mittees diiring the year. This does not give
a true picture as it only refers to the meetings
actually held up to the date when the Report
was drafted over a month ago.
Since then
there have been two more meetings of the
Council and six or seven meetings of the
Committees and the total number of meetings
held in this way are certainly not less than
fifty-four or fifty-five in the year. To this
has to be added ten meetings of the Statutory
Committee, three meetings of the Joint-Bill
Committee, ten or eleven meetings of the
sub-Committee dealing with the Bill, the
meetings held in connection with the election
of a new Secretary, etc.
At all these meetings your President and
Vice-Presidents are ex-officio members of the
Committee and attend if they can.
It is the
privilege of your President to preside at all
of them and I am happy to say that I was
able to attend and preside at every single
one of the meetings (whether of the Council
or Committees) held during my term of
office, with the sole exception of one Finance
Committee which was summoned for the
same time as the High Court Rules Committee.
Apart from these meetings of the Council
and its Committees there are various other
duties that your President has to perform.
He is a member of the High Court Rules
Committee and during my term of office
I have attended five or six meetings of this
Committee. He is also expected to preside
at your own Half-yearly and Yearly General
Meetings, at any Special Meetings of the
Society and at least two, if not more, meet
ings of the Solicitors1' Apprentices' Debating
Society.
In addition, he is frequently called
upon to interview officials in Government
Offices and I have personally interviewed
the Solicitor to the Revenue on two occasions
in reference to questions of stamp duty.
I have also seen the Estate
Duty
Office, and
one other member of the Council has attended
and discussed the position under the Land
Registry Rules with the Registrar of Titles.
I believe I would be very nearly accurate
in saying that during the year I have presided
at almost one hundred meetings of one kind
or another.
Even there the functions of the Society
do not end.
In addition to providing a
Library which is available to all full members
of the Society in the premises in which this
meeting is being held, the Society answers
numerous queries which are constantly being
received by your Secretary from members
who are in doubt as to some point of practice
or otherwise. These letters while replied to
by your Secretary if they raise any serious
question are always discussed with the Presi
dent and possibly some other members of
the Council before your Secretary's reply is
drafted.
I think from this short resume of the
work of
the Society new members will
appreciate that there is a very great deal of
work done by the Council, all of it voluntary,
and all of it done most cheerfully, and that
although the results may not always be very
apparent, the interests of the - Society are
constantly watched and safeguarded.
I believe if these duties and functions of
the Council were more carefully realised the
members of the Profession as a whole would
be only too glad to stand behind the Society
and join in membership. As you know, the
subscription is only £1 per annum or, in the
case of country members who do not desire
to avail themselves of the full privileges of
the Society, may be only 10/- per annum.
This is a very much smaller subscription
than is levied by the average Trades Union