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The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.
[JUNE, 1914
in all, and of these eighteen are held by
barristers receiving salaries amounting to
£15,000 a year, and only one is held by a
solicitor receiving a salary of £800 a year.
The thing is little short of a scandal, and I
feel sure that I voice the feeling of the whole
profession when J say there exists amongst
us grave dissatisfaction at the manner in
which legal patronage in Ireland is now
exercised. We have no voice whatever,
collectively or individually in the bestowal
of any legal appointment, and the con
sequence appears to be that our just claim to
a fair share of such appointments is ignored
to an increasing extent year by year. With
the assistance of my friend, Mr. Quirke, I have
taken from
the Parliamentary estimates
and elsewhere, some figures in connection with
this subject, and certainly they are most
instructive. The salaries paid in respect of
legal offices, to which members of the Bar
alone are eligible, amount at the present time
to £140,000 per annum, and the salaries paid
in respect to legal offices, to which solicitors
alone are eligible, amount to a little over
£50,000, something more than one-third of
the former figure.
In addition there are a
large number of other salaried offices all of a
legal nature, including positions in the offices
of the High Court, the Chief Clerkships, the
Registrarships, and so forth, many of which
are held by laymen, and I make out roughly,
in respect of these additional offices, over
£55,000 a year is paid to the members of the
Bar, and about £2,500 a year is paid to
solicitors.
In round figures, members of the
Bar are in receipt of salaries amounting to
at least £200,000 a year, and members of our
profession, salaries
amounting
to
about
£53,000 a year. Contrast these figures with
the fact that last year there were only 438
barristers subscribing to the Bar Library and
paying no professional tax whatever, while
1,562 solicitors took out certificates and paid
His Majesty's Exchequer in the shape of
annual certificate duty a sum of £10,500 for
the privilege of practising their profession.
What the remedy for this state of affairs may
be it is difficult to state, but this I know, that
it is humiliating to a degree to go on year after
year protesting and supplicating without any
apparent effect. Our first step appears to be
to get the profession to take a livelier interest
in this grave matter, and with this object in
view the Council have in course of prepara
tion a report on the whole subject, giving
facts and figures, and this report we propose
to print and circulate amongst the members
of the Society. There are not wanting signs
that the whole High Court system in Ireland
before long will be in the melting pot, and
when such time approaches we solicitors, into
whose hands the legal work of the country is
passing more and more, must be ready to
assert and maintain our claim to a larger
share of
the legal appointments
in
this
country.
(Applause).
The Secretary submitted
letters
from
twelve country members who were unable to
be present, and who expressed approval of
the motion of which Mr. Rooney had given
notice.
MR. ROONEY moved the resolution, of
which he had given notice, viz. :—" To
amend Bye-law 3 by omitting from the words
' for members taking out a country certifi
cate '
down
to
'£!,' and to make
the
consequential alterations in Bye-law 32 by
omitting the words from
' save ' down to
' members,' and in Bye-law 33 by omitting
the words ' one pound.'
Before introducing his subject Mr. Rooney
offered the congratulations of the Society to
Mr. Synnott on his election as President, and
said how much they all appreciated his
generosity in the particularly happy social
function with which he had inaugurated his
year of office, in the Golfing Tournament, to
be held on the 21st inst. Before proceeding
with his motion he would like to dispel some
erroneous views that had been circulated in
reference to it.
It had been suggested by
certain members, that this was the continu
ation of some deep-laid plan which was sup
posed to have been hatched in November last,
to attack the Council and turn out the older
members. He certainly had nothing to do
with any such plan, if it ever existed, and he
would like to state emphatically that he did
not intend to make any attack, good, bad or
indifferent, upon the Council or any of its
members. His object was that the Council
should be put in a position to represent the
entire profession in Ireland. Until the Society
did
this, the reforms referred to by the
President could not possibly be carried out.
The meaning of the motion was that a
solicitor taking out a country certificate