The Gazette 1993

GAZETTE

SEPTEMBER 1993

Capping" Proposal Criticised

The period from mid-July to early

September was relatively quiet in

the media concerning coverage of

legal affairs, with the legal

professions, for once, largely

escaping "silly season "treatment.

Justice Media Awards

The awards ceremony of the Law

Society's inaugural Justice Media

Awards competition received favour-

able coverage, including photographs,

in all the national daily papers on

Saturday 10 July, the

Sunday

Independent

of 11 July, and in the

Western People, Corkman

and

Kerryman

the following week. Inevit-

ably, the newspapers focused in

particular on the members of their staff

who had won awards or received

certificates of merit.

Probate Tax Campaign continues

The meeting of the Alliance Against

Probate Tax with the Minister for

Finance in mid-July received consider-

able coverage in the provincial media in

the subsequent fortnight. All the papers

quoted

Raymond Monahan,

President of

the Law Society, saying that the

Minister had accepted that the Alliance

represented a huge cross section of

interests which were totally opposed to

the introduction of the tax and reported

that the Minister had agreed to conduct

a review of the effects and the operation

of the tax.

Proposal to cap personal injuries

awards.

A front page story in the

Irish

Independent

on 19 August, 1993,

reported that a radical plan to cut

insurance costs by limiting court awards

in personal injuries cases was to be

brought before the Cabinet by

Commerce & Technology Minister,

Seamus Brennan,

and that the proposals

could become law within the year. The

article noted that Mr. Brennan had come

in for strong criticism from the

Incorporated Law Society when he had

first announced the plans and quoted

Mr. Brennan saying that he totally

disagreed with the views expressed by

the Law Society in a submission to him.

A news analysis feature article in the

Independent

on the same day repeated

much of the front page story and

included the Minister's claims that

research showed that awards here were

up to 78% higher than the EC average.

The following day, the

Independent

reported that Minister Brennan's plan

might not have an easy passage through

the Cabinet as it was understood that

some Labour Ministers, in particular,

had reservations about his proposals.

The article also noted that the Law

Society had reacted strongly to the latest

report of the Minister's plans and had

stated that his proposals would be unjust

and would penalise ordinary people

who suffered injury through no fault of

their own. The article noted that the

Society was calling on Mr. Brennan to

abandon any move to interfere with the

discretion of the courts to fully

compensate people and that the Society

had called for greater attention to safety,

particularly in the workplace, more

rigorous enforcement of the road traffic

laws, an improvement in the condition

of roads, greater resourcing of the

courts system in order to reduce delays,

and an examination by insurance

companies of their administrative costs

and practices, as ways of attempting to

reduce the cost of insurance. An article

in the

Cork Examiner

on 20 August,

1993 entitled "Law Society raps injury

award plan", reported in detail on the

statement issued by the Law Society on

19 August.

In the

Sunday Independent

on 22

August, 1993 columnist

Sam Smyth

noted that the latest proposal would be

the fourth "favourable" reform

successive Governments had put in

place at the behest of the insurance

industry, but that insurance premiums

had continued to spiral after the first

three reforms. Reporting in the

Irish

Independent

of 31 August, 1993 on the

Annual Report of the Motor Insurance

Advisory Board, which noted that motor

insurance premiums in Ireland were

98% higher than the EC average while

the claims payout was 160% higher

here, journalist

Gene McKenna

said that j

Minister Brennan's proposals had had a

mixed response and he repeated the

assertion that some Labour Ministers

were known to have strong reservations

about the plan to take the pain and

suffering element out of court awards.

He noted that the Incorporated Law

Society "had led the criticism" of Mr.

Brennan's plans.

Resourcing of the Courts

A number of news items over the six

week period reported on the apalling

condition of various courthouses around

the country. The Chairman-elect of the

Bar Council,

Frank Clarke

SC, spoke

out about the need to appoint another

six judges in the High Court and said

that the Law Society and the Bar

Council were preparing a major

submission to the Minister for Justice

on the need for adequate resourcing of

the courts system. The Bar Council also

called on the Government to ensure that

representatives from the practising

professions would be included on the

Judicial Commission being set up to

examine the administration and

functioning of the courts, echoing a

demand made publicly by the Law

Society earlier this year.

All the daily newspapers of 4

September reported the judgment of the

Hon Mr Justice Lynch in which he

made an order to the Minister for

Justice to direct Louth County Council

forthwith to provide courthouse

accommodation suitable for the sittings

and business of the Circuit Court in

Drogheda, following a case taken by

members of the Drogheda Bar

Association seeking to compel the

Minister to perform her duties under the

Courthouses (Provision and Mainten-

ance) Act, 1935.

Barbara Cahalane

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