The Gazette 1974

tice, and the Attorney General shall investigate the

condition of health or conduct of the Director. The

Government having considered the report of this Com-

mittee, may remove the Director from office.

.Section

3 ( / ) confers upon the Director all the

powers, duties and functions capable of being exercised

by the Attorney General in relation to Criminal Matters

and Election and Referendum Petitions. The section

also provides for certain transitional arrangements and

preserves the position of the Attorney General in re-

lation to the Constitutional validity of any laws, and

to decide whether a point of law is of public importance

on appeal from the Court of Criminal Appeal.

6. Certain functions have been conferred on the

Attorney General by statute which are more or less

routine and which are performed many times each

day, e.g. the giving of consent to summary disposal in

appropriate cases. It has been suggested, in the con-

tc*:t of section 47 of the Offences against the State

Ací, 1C3C, that a function so conferred must be per-

formed personally by the Attorney General. This sit-

uation has been dealt with up to the present by ob-

taining the personal directions of the Attorney Gen-

eral in these cases. Under

section 4,

the function will,

in law, continue to be performed by the Attorney Gen-

eral or the Director, as the case may be, but may be

performed, on his behalf, in accordance with partic-

ular or general instructions issued by him.

Section 5

provides for the possibility that at any

time the Government might consider it necessary for

reasons of national security, to exclude certain crimin-

al matters e.g. schedule offences within the meaning

of the Offences against the State Act, from the scope

of the functions of the Director. Under this section,

this could be achieved by Government order, which

would re-transfer the matters to the Attorney Gener

Section

6 makes it unlawful for any person, oth

than a person who has a legitimate interest, to

tempt to influence the making by the Attorney Gej

eral, the Director, their officers, State Solicitors or th®

Gardai, of a decision not to initiate or to withdraw

criminal proceedings.

Section

7 provides for the distribution by the A

torney General and the Director of State briefs

barristers in a fair and equitable manner.

Consultation

between the Attorney General, the Director and tn

General Council of the Bar as to the best manner

which this objective can be achieved is provided f°

There is also provision for a complaints procedure &

the event of individual barristers feeling aggrieved

relation to the distribution of State briefs.

10.

Section 8

provides for proof in Court of docu-

ments issued by the Attorney General or the Director-

11. Section 9

provides for the possibility of a sudden

vacancy in the office of Director and for a period

incapacity of the Director. There is provision for p

lication of appointments and terminations of appo|

ments in

Irish Oifigiuil

and for minimum qualification^

of a temporary Director and an acting Director. J

minimum qualifications for their appointment

lower than those for an appointment under Section >

in order, amongst other considerations, to underline t

fact that the temporary Director would have no cla

to succeed as permanent Director.

12.

Section 10

enables the Taoiseach to make

r e g

ations to enable the Act to have full effect.

Section

provides for a consequential repeal.

Section 12 provide

for the laying of regulations before the Oireacht

section

/ 3 for administration expenses and

section

for citation and commencement.

Presentation of Parchments to Newly

Qualified Solicitors

The following address was delivered by Mr. Peter D.

M. Prentice, President, on Thursday, 6 June 1974, on

the occasion of presenting parchments to new solicitors.

Ladies and Gentlemen : This is one of our most

pleasurable occasions—a family occasion—where we

can relax in the knowledge that the end of the appren-

ticeship road has been reached, all examinations over

and nothing remains but to receive the parchment

which proclaims success to all effort.

We are gathered here to congratulate our latest body

of newly-qualified solicitors and in this little ceremony

to wish them well in their future, whether it be in prac-

tice, in business in industry or whatever road they may

now take as a result of qualifying.

You who have now qualified can in a sense treat your-

self as among the last products of an educational sys-

tem which is about to change radically. As and from

Octobery 1975—next year—it will not be possible to

enter into apprenticeship unless and until the student

has had a university degree conferred. In most cases it

will be a law degree although certain other degrees will

be acceptable. A three-year post-graduate law trains-

will be necessary, commencing with a year's intensi

training with the Law Society, followed by nearly

years of practical training in your master's office

3fl

ending then with a final examination.

(

These changes which necessarily have had to

tailored to fit into the Society's powers under the ex|

ing Solicitors' Acts—which are technical and restricts

in many aspects—are designed to give a much bett ^

emphasis to training and experience in a practical m

ner in offices. We on the Council of the Society,

that they are a vast improvement on the present

the defects of which are the overlapping of univers'.

and the Society's courses and lack of time for pract'

training.

You may be unique in another sense in that P

j j

you are the last to get parchments written on act

parchment. It seems to be disappearing. The law

be an ass but it is no longer being served by goats! ,

I would like to make a plea to solicitors to rev'

their affairs to see how they may take apprentices

3,1

so accommodate what is a great problem of find'

190