The Gazette 1993

GAZETTE

IMN AGE

JUNE 1993

The Profession in the Media

The first in a new series of monthly

columns examining issues relating to

the profession as reported in the

media.

The new probate tax and a proposal to

cap personal injuries awards were the

main issues which engaged the

participation of the profession in the

media during the month of May.

Personal Injuries

The first indication of a proposal by the

Minister of State for Commerce and

Technology,

Seamus Brennan

, to

introduce legislation to place a cap on

the amount that could be awarded in

personal injuries claims, was in an

article in the

Sunday Tribune

of 9 May,

1993. The article referred to a study by

the Department of Enterprise and

Employment which claimed that Irish

awards exceeded the EC average by

70%. The Minister was quoted as

saying he would not introduce the cap

unless insurance companies gave a

guarantee that they would in return

reduce insurance premiums. The

Minister outlined his proposals again in

a speech to the Irish Insurance Federa-

tion on 18 May. The Law Society

responded to his proposals in an inter-

view on the RTE News at One

programme in which the Director

General of the Society,

Noel Ryan,

questioned the dubious constitutionality

of the Minister's proposal and criticised

his approach as being too narrow in that

he sought to concentrate solely on one

aspect of insurance costs i.e. personal

injury awards. Noel Ryan suggested that

if the Government was concerned about

achieving European norms they should

think about introducing a European

standard of civil legal aid here. Minister

Brennan's proposals and Noel Ryan's

criticisms were reported in the

Evening

Press

of that day and the

Irish

Independent

of the following day.

The President of the Law Society,

Raymond Monahan,

also addressed the

issue in his speech to the Annual

Conference of the Society and his

remarks were reported in

The Irish

Times

of 21 May, 1993, and he was

interviewed on the RTE "Morning

Ireland" programme of that day.

Raymond Monahan said that Minister

Brennan was responding to direct

pressure from insurance interests to the

detriment of the ordinary citizen. He

said it would be dangerous and wrong

to interfere with a judge's discretion

about the amount of compensation that

could be awarded and he questioned the

validity of the Minister's comparisons

with other EC countries.

The President of the Southern Law

Association, Justin Condon, was quoted

in the

Irish Independent

of 23 May,

1993, as saying that the increased costs

of litigation were due not to the growth

in personal injuries claims but rather to

delays and inadequate resources in the

courts system which added to expense.

Probate Tax

In his address to the Annual Conference

of the Society, the President of the Law

Society,

Raymond Monahan,

criticised

the new probate tax introduced in the

Finance Bill, 1993, as being unfair and

indiscriminate. He added that it would

cause huge legal difficulties for the

public while providing little financial

advantage to the Government. His

comments were reported in

The Irish

Times

of 22 May, 1993.

A joint initiative by the Law Society

and the Irish Farmers' Association to

form an alliance against the probate tax,

comprising ten representative

organisations, was reported in the

Farmers' Journal

of 29 May, 1993 and

the

Irish Independent

and

Daily Star

i 31 May, 1993. A joint press conference

was held on 31 May, 1993 and

throughout that day the President of the

Society, Raymond Monahan, was

interviewed on RTE News Radio and

! TV news bulletins in which he pointed

out the implications of the tax for

people of relatively modest means and

called on the Minister for Finance to

abandon the tax.

Des Rooney

of the

Law Society's Taxation Committee was

interviewed on the RTE News at One

programme. The RTE Today at Five

current affairs programme recorded the

opposition of many of the participating

organisations as well as briefly

interviewing the President of the Law

Society, Raymond Monahan, and the

President of the IFA, Alan Gillis. The

press conference and a joint statement

issued by the Alliance against Probate

Tax were extensively reported in all of

the national daily papers on Tuesday, 1

June, 1993.

A number of feature articles published

during the month dealt with issues of

concern to the profession. Following

the settlement of the Kenneth Best case,

Gene Kerrigan wrote an opinion

column in the

Sunday Independent,

which he praised the solicitors and

barristers on Mr. Best's legal team,

who had been prepared to take on the

case without any prospect of

remuneration if it failed, but went on to

criticise the lack of legal aid, the lack of

access to basic information, the lack of

medical assessments paid for by the

State, lawyers who charged £2,000-

£3,000 a day and courts choked with

cases. "Should anybody's rights depend

on the personal strength and staying

power of litigants and the kindness of

lawyers?" he asked. In a one-page

feature article entitled "Injury claims:

why the jury is still out," in the

Irish

Independent

of 26 May, 1993, a

spokesperson for the Society pointed

out that if it were not for no foal - no

fee arrangements, cases such as the

Best case would never have a chance of

proceeding.

| A number of news items throughout the

i month and a one-page feature article in

the

Irish Independent

on 2 June, 1993,

focused on the delays caused by a

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