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advanced and the fast approaching date can be looked
forward to with confidence. We have been very fortu
nate in enjoying the help and co-operation of the Govern
ment who are giving a reception, of the Chief Justice
and the President of
the High Court who have
re
arranged Court Sittings to suit the programme for the
week, the Benchers of the Kings Inns who very gener
ously made their premises available, our own apprentices
and young solicitors who have provided a complete con
stituency of stewards and staff, and of course Bord
Faille who have been most helpful. Apart from
the
formal business of the conference a very full social pro
gramme has been arranged. The principal events of
which are the reception at the Four Courts and Kings
Inns on Monday night, the reception to be given by
the Government on Tuesday night at the Castle, an
Irish evening on Wednesday night, a visit to the theatre
on Thursday night, and concluding banquet and ball at
Castletown House on Friday night in addition to which
there is a full programme of entertainment for the ladies
and coach tours for all the conferees. In addition to
arranging all these matters the committee have had to
provide the entire facilities for the conduct of the con
ference itself in the Royal Dublin Society's premises at
Ballsbridge. With all the complexities which a multi
lingual conference of such a large proportion is involved
we are all greatly indebted, I more than anybody, to
Mr. Carrigan and the members of the committee and
Mr. Hunkett and hope and pray that their labours will
be crowned with the success which they deserve.
LEGAL EDUCATION
The present system of education of apprentices, what
ever may be said for its suitability for earlier times is
quite unsuited to the requirements of the present time
and is extremely unsatisfactory. It has been the subject
of adverse comment from many quarters and in many of
these criticisms there is an underlying inference that the
Society and its Council have neither been alive to these
defects nor concerned to initiate the necessary reform.
Nothing could be further from the truth. It also seems to
be thought that the Society has the power within itself
to carry out the necessary reforms. I want to correct
both of these misconceptions. It is over seven years ago
since the Council after careful study, prepared a com
plete and detailed plan for a new programme of educa
tion of apprentices. That plan was submitted in the form
of recommendation to the Commission on Higher Educa
tion; the full text may be found in the appendix to the
report of that commission. I am also glad to say that
these
recommendations were accepted almost without
qualification by the commission in its report. It is of
interest to note that two further studies on this subject
were produced, one by the Society of Young Solicitors
six years later in November 1967 and one by the appren
tices themselves in the same year. Both were prepared
apparently independently of one another and without
knowledge of the contents of the Council's recommenda
tions of 1961. The conclusions arrived at differ only in
unessential detail. The Council were of the view and
still are that the defects are fundamental and are not
to be remedied by some modification of syllabi, it needs
rather a complete reconstruction of the entire system
from beginning to end. It is in this that the difficulty
lies. The present system of education
is described in
considerable detail in part four of the Solicitors Act,
1954, and the second schedule. The reforms which the
Society have in mind as contained in their memorandum
of 1961 would involve the repeal of Part 4 and the
enactment of new legislation preferably of a much more
flexible nature which would permit further modifications
being made
in
the system as circumstances
in future
times might require. Quite obviously it was pointless to
promote such legislation until the report on the com
mission and the attitude of the Government to it became
known. That as you know did not happen until late last
year. This obstacle has now been removed but there is
one further matter which must be dealt with. At present
we have in the city of Dublin alone four law schools. I
think I am expressing a view which would be shared by
most of you that this is a most wasteful and inefficient
arrangement, which serves no useful purpose. None of
these
law schools are big enough
to afford complete
permanent whole-time
staffing and adequate
tutorial
facilities. The obvious answer is that there should be one
law school which would cater for the theoretical aspects
of legal education. Such a school staffed with who'ctimc
professors and lecturers would have the added advantage
of providing a nucleus for legal research which is con
spicuously absent in this country and which is so very
important particularly in these times of rapid develop
ment and the approach or more intimate contact with
legal systems of other countries. With this in view the
Society has approached
the other
institutions and a
meeting is to take place within the next two weeks.
I should mention under this heading the spectacular
increase in the number of apprentices in the last two
years. Entrants are now running at over 100 per annum
as against a wasteage of approximately 30. We may
assume that almost all of these students will one day be
solicitors and if this trend continues and unless there is
dramatic increase and unless so'icitors are struck with
some fatal epidemic peculiar to their profession there is
going to be a gross oversupply on the market in four or
five years hence and in the years following. We have no
right to restrict entry to our profession not have we any
wish to do so. The door is open to everyone. But I would
direct the attention of intending students, parents and
career guidance officers to these facts and suggest that
before a student seeks apprenticeship he should famil
iarise himself with
these statistics by consulting Mr.
Plunkett and his staff.
THE FUTURE OF THE PROFESSION AND THE
SOCIETY
During my term I have visited most of the Bar Asso
ciations in Ireland and I have been struck by the far.'
that the accessibility of solicitors in all parts of Ireland
even
the most remote.
In every part of Ireland
the
people can call upon the services of a solicitor who has
his office at an easy distance from their homes and whom
they know personally. This led me to consider how im
portant this is for the proper working of our democratic
process. In our conception of democracy
it
is
funda
mental that every person should stand equal before the
law. If this is to be so he must have effective access to
the machinery of law enforcement, namely the courts.
This function the solicitor ideally fulfills. He
is com
pletely independent and not only
is
independent but
appears to be so; he therefore enjoys the confidence and
respect of his client who knows that he owes no loyalty
and is beholden to no one except to his client. In the
case of superior courts he channels the client to suitable
counsel and in many of the inferior courts he carries out
the entire business himself. None of these courts in parti
cular the inferior courts could work at all in the absence
of a solicitors profession because there can be no substi
tute for a completely independent solicitor enjoying the