37 / 196
company. He also pointed out that the fee included the
work done in preparing a proper report of the pro-
ceedings in the District Court which is required by the
insurance company and that a solicitor would not be
obliged to prepare or furnish a report unless he was
properly remunerated for the work.
Mr. William B. Allen, Galway, congratulated the
President on his admirable address. He referred to what
he regarded as frustrating delays in connection with
the King's Hospital and the problem of escalating
building costs which he stated might get out of hand
and he knew that the King's Hospital Committee and
the Council were making every effort to bring the nego-
tiations with the Commissioners of Public Works to a
satisfactory conclusion so that the price realised for the
Society's interest in the Solicitors' Buildings would place
the Society in a financial position to cope with the
capital and current expenditure on King's Hospital.
He also referred to the President's statement on the
subject of legal remuneration and the Central Costs
Committee. Every member, he said, should resolve to
stand firm on the principle of the independence of the
profession from executive control and should support
the Council in their demand that any control of solici-
tors' remuneration on orders made by the various costs
fixing bodies should rest with the Oireachtas. Executive
control was not acceptable irrespective of the political
party in office
(applause).
There should be no surrender
on this principle.
The proceedings then terminated.
The Minister for Justice on Legal
Education
About eighty guests and thirty members of the Council
attended the annual dinner of the Council, which was
held in the Library of Solicitors Buildings, Four Courts,
on Thursday, 22nd April 1971. The President, Mr.
Brendan McGrath, presided and welcomed the guests at
a reception beforehand. Mr. Peter Prentice, Vice-
President, proposed the toast of "Our Guests", to which
Judge McGivern responded.
Subsequently, the Minister for Justice, Mr. O'Malley,
in proposing the toast of the Society said.
I should like to express my sincere thanks to the Presi-
dent and Council of the Society for inviting me here
tonight. It is an honour and a privilege for me to
propose the toast of the Society.
Yours, or perhaps I should say ours, is an old and
venerable Society with a proud record of achievement.
The high esteem in which the solicitors' profession is
held is due in large measure to the activities of the
Society since its foundation over a century ago. The
success of any organisation is the result of unstinting
devotion of time and energy on the part of a small
number of members. In the past the Society has been
fortunate in being guided by Councils of exceptional
dedication. From my unique position as a member of
the profession and Minister for Justice I can say that
the present Council is in the very best tradition of the
Society.
Needless to remark, Government Ministers and pro-
fessional organisations may not always see eye to eye on
matters of mutual concern and I am acutely conscious
that from time to time I have to take decisions which do
not meet with the full approval of the Society. However,
the important thing is that we do not disagree on
fundamentals. The end of all our endeavours is the
achievement of the greatest possible measure of liberty
and justice for all our people. In my dealings with the
Society since I became Minister for Justice I have found
the Council members not only formidable advocates
and sturdy defenders of the interests of the profession
but at the same time not unmindful of the public
interest.
Legal Education
A matter of vital concern to the solicitors' profession
and to the country in general presently engaging our
attention is the question of legal education. I have
already publicly expressed the view that the system of
legal education in this country (both in regard to solici-
tors and barristers) is in many ways outdated and unsa-
tisfactory. I might also add that the system in England
and Wales is not significantly different from ours and
has from time to time been subjected to an amount of
criticism. In Scotland, substantial changes have been
made in legal education in the past ten years. Tradi-
tionally, the Scottish universities have always played a
highly important role in legal education : and this is, to
my way of thinking, only as it should be in any system
of legal education, properly so called.
A Committee under the chairmanship of a High
Court Judge, Mr. Justice Ormrod, was established by
the former British Lord Chancellor, Lord Gardiner, at
the end of 1967 to enquire into the field of legal educa-
tion in England and particularly the problems of training
and qualifying for the legal profession. The Committee's
Report was published quite recently and I strongly
commend a study of it to the members of your Society
as well as to all those concerned with the future of the
legal profession. In addition to dealing with the legal
education system in England and Wales, the Committee
in an Appendix to their Report furnish a very valuable
survey of the systems of legal education operating in
Scotland, in the United States, in various British
Commonwealth countries and in a number of European
countries.
To my mind the greatest defect in our present system
of legal education is the lack of co-ordination between
the various teaching authorities. There are four univer-
sity colleges, each one independent of the others, pro-
viding courses for university degrees in law which, how-
ever, do not entitle the holders to practise law. In order
to practise, a person must undertake a course of studies
prescribed by either the Honourable Society of King's
Inns or the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland, which
leads to a professional qualification to practise. In fact,
however, the professional bodies are only able to provide
part of the courses of education they prescribe and have
to depend on the universities to provide the rest.
The present confused system is, to say the least,
illogical and wasteful of resources. The universities are
the only bodies providing comprehensive courses in
law; yet a university degree in law is not an entitlement
reauired in addition to university examinations.
In a speech which I delivered at a meeting of the
37