263 / 324
of the Council Sub-Committees by the members
at all their meetings during the year.
As President I can honestly and truthfully say
that during the past twelve months the attendance
at the Council meetings and the Committee meetings
of the Council has surpassed all previous records.
It has been an inspiration and a great encourage
ment to me to observe this state of affairs.
When I took office as your President at the end
of last year I did so with considerable misgivings
as to my ability to adequately do the work and
stay the course, and as to my competency to fill
the office and to sit in this Chair.
I have been
fortified and sustained by the help and assistance
given to me by my two Vice-Presidents and the
other members of the Council;
their help and
encouragement exemplified by their excellent atten
dances at the meetings of the Council and the
Committees has enabled me to do my work with
increasing confidence and pleasure as the months
went by.
There seems to me no doubt whatever that the
Council and the Committees attached to them, unlike
the proverbial rolling stone, are all the time gathering
more work and faced with more and bigger prob
lems. As a result of this a special Sub-Committee
has been sitting during the year to consider suggested
changes in the form of our organization and to
secure if possible the more effective working of
the Council by reviewing the Constitution and
Bye-Laws of the Society.
There are still roughly 200 solicitors who are not
members of our Society, and it is difficult to decide
what is the best method of persuading them to
join. They must be convinced of the advantages
of being members of our Society, by their fellow-
Solicitors who are already members, and by the
Local Bar Associations getting in touch with them,
so that in due course our Society would have
almost 100 per cent, membership.
One of the matters causing considerable concern
to our Council during the past 12 months has been
the over-crowding of our Profession.
It is part of the duty of the Registrar's Committee
to report to the Council on the number of Appren
tices entering into Indentures and the number of new
Solicitors who are admitted annually.
Some time ago this Committee recommended that
this particular matter should be kept under constant
review by the Council, as they were of the opinion
that this over-crowding of our profession may be
primarily responsible for the number of complaints
which come before the Society and the Disciplinary
Committee.
As you all know under the Solicitors Act the
Society are obliged to maintain a Compensation
Fund which will after 1960 be sufficient to provide
full indemnity for defaulting Solicitors, bearing this
fact in mind, and realising that the year 1960 is
only approximately 2 years ahead, I feel myself that
some steps will have to be taken to limit or possibly
even to reduce the annual intake of solicitors
to the profession.
One of the principal matters affecting the profes
sion during the last twelve months was in my view
the proposed new Solicitors' Remuneration General
Order, 1957, dealing with costs in non-contentious
matters. As you are aware, last year a Sub-Com
mittee of the Council was appointed to consider
proposals for an Application
to
the Statutory
Body under the Solicitors' Remuneration Act, 1881,
on the subject of charges under Schedule II,
S.R.G.O., 1884, for non-contentious business. The
Council subsequently on receipt of a Report from
its Sub-Committee
formulated proposals which
were circulated to the profession dealing with the
suggested new system of charges under Schedule II
analogous to the system which came into operation
in England
in
1953, and which was partly
adopted in Northern Ireland in 1955.
By direction of the Council, an Application was
made to the Statutory Body which having con
sidered the matter at several meetings decided to
make the necessary Order which was duly drafted
and finally approved. Before its signature by the
Statutory Body an anonymous communication was
sent to a number of the members of the Dail and
Seanad, seeking opposition to the Order, and
making a number of inaccurate and untrue state
ments as to its general effect. When our Sub-
Committee became aware of this document they
drafted in my opinion a very excellent letter in
reply containing a factual statement as to the true
position, and this letter was sent by direction of the
Council to the Minister for Justice, the Secretary
of the Statutory Body and each member of the
Dail and Seanad. The order was signed by the
Statutory Body on loth, October but was dis
allowed by a motion brought in Seanad Eireann
by the Government just over a week ago. The
manner in which this motion was brought and the
majority by which it was carried are fully dealt with
in the report of the Special Committee of the
Council which was appointed to deal with the
matter.
I do not wish to make any further per
sonal comment as I am the only Solicitor member
of the Statutory Body which made the order which
has been disallowed. The report of the Sub-
Committee has been submitted to the Council to
be read at this meeting for the information of
57