330 / 330
GAZETTE
JULY/AUGUST 1986
a dramatic change. As well as becoming
cold and distant to her, he accused her of
having an affair with the best man at their
wedding and of drugging his food.
Mr. R. threatened to leave Mrs. R. and
in fact did so in January 1982. It was only
in February that he informed Mrs. R. of
some
of
his
medical
history
and
subsequently they both went to see his
psychiatrist who told Mrs. R. that her
husband was a very sick man, would have
to be immediately hospitalised and that he
was a schizophrenic.
Mr. R. was kept in hospital, on and off,
until June, during which time his attitude
towards Mrs. R. became more and more
distant, and he eventually told her he did
not want her to visit him anymore nor did
he want to return to their home. On his
discharge from hospital, he removed all his
belongings from the family home. When
Mrs. R. visited him at his new residence he
told her to get out. When she phoned him
in July to tell him of her mother's death he
banged,the 'phone down.
Three
phychiatrists
gave
medical
evidence on Mrs. R's behalf, diagnosing
Mr. R. as a paranoid schizophrenic, which
fully explained the unfounded allegations
he made against Mrs. R. and his unjusti-
fiable rejection of her. These doctors were
of the opinion that Mr. R. was not capable
of entering into a stable marraige relation-
ship with his wife. Mr. R's own psychia-
trist, who had treated him since 1976, gave
evidence of his medical history, establish-
ing that he had continued to be treated up
to 1981, when shortly before his marriage,
he discontinued his injections on his own
initiative. His Doctor had not been aware
that Mr. R. intended to get married and his
opinion was that he should not have done
so. Like the other psychiatrists, he was of
the opinion that Mr. R's illness disabled
him from carrying on a stable normal
marriage relationship with his wife.
Having repeated the conclusion he had
reached in the case of D. -v- C. [19841
ILRM 173 (based on observations of
Kenny J. in
S.
-v-
S.
(unreported, 1 July
1976), of Barrington J. in
R.S.J,
-v-
J.S.J.
[1982] ILRM 263; of Hamilton J. in M
(otherwise
O)
-v-
O
(unreported, 24
January 1984) and Barrington J. in
W.
-v-
P.
(unreported, 7 June 1984), that the High
Court has jurisdiction to declare null and
void a marriage when one of the spouses at
its date was, through psychiatric disability,
unable to enter into and sustain the normal
inter-personal relationships which marriage
requires, Costello J. HELD:
that as a result of the psychiatric illness
from which Mr. R. was suffering at the
date of his marriage he was incapable of
entering into and of sustaining a normal
marriage relationship with Mrs. R., who
was therefore entitled to a declaration that
her marriage was null and void.
Note:
The Judge stated that it did not follow
from the decision he reached on these
particular
facts that
every
paranoid
schizophrenic was, as a matter of law,
incapable of entering into a valid marriage.
R.
-v-
R. — High Court (per Costello
J.),
21 December 1984 —
unreported.
Sarah
Cox
TAX
An artificial process for ripening bananas
does not constitute a "Manufacturing"
Process for Corporation Tax relief.
The Appellants were engaged in a
process for artifically ripening bananas
transported to Ireland in a green unripened
state. The ripening process takes between
four and nine days and sometimes longer
and is carried out in specially constructed
and equipped ripening rooms. The process
requires special expertise but not profes-
sional qualifications and has two stages.
The initial stage is to bring the fruit to
uniform temperature. This stage requires
careful monitoring of temperature and
humidity. At a certain point, determined
under the control of a skilled manager, the
temperature must be reduced and the fruit
enters its second stage. Gas is introduced
into the chamber, and again, careful
control is required. The gas penetrates the
cells of the fruit and causes the ripening
process to set in earlier than it would
normally do. Constant testing is necessary
to ensure the ripening process results in a
marketable product.
If bananas were allowed to ripen
naturally off the plant the quality would be
variable and the process too haphazard for
orderly marketing so that economic losses
would be enormous.
Section 54(1) of the Corporation Tax Act
1976 (referred to as " t he Ac t ") provides:
" In this Part " g o o d s" means goods
manufactured within the State by the
person who exports them or some of
them and who in the relevant accoun-
ting period is the company claiming
relief under this P a r t ".
There is no definition of the word
"ma n u f a c t u r e" contained in the Act.
At the Circuit Court hearing, it was held
that
the bananas in question
were
processed in this Country but that, they
could not be regarded as having been
manufactured here. This decision was
upheld in a case stated to the High Court
and the Company then appealed to the
Supreme Court raising for consideration
the true construction of Section 54 of the
Act.
The Supreme Court referred to three
basic rules of statutory interpretation
previously ap'plied by the Court
in
Inspector of Taxes
-v-
Kiernan
(1981J I.R.
117 as follows:
1. If the statutory provision is one
directed at the public at large (rather
than to a particular class) then, in the
absence of internal evidence suggesting
the contrary, the word or expression
should be given its ordinary or collo-
quial meaning.
2. If a word or expression is used in a
Statute creating a penal or taxation
liability, and there is looseness or
ambiguity attaching to it, the word
should be construed strictly so as to
prevent a fresh imposition of liability
from being created unfairly by the use
of oblique or slack language.
3. When the word which requires to be
given its natural and ordinary meaning
is a simple word which has a wide-
spread and unambiguous currency the
Judge construing it should draw
primarily on his own experience of its
use.
Applying the first and third rules, it was
considered that the Statute was one
directed to the public generally (as opposed
to particular classes covered by specialised
legislation such as Solicitors, Opticians,
Dentists, etc.). The word "ma n u f a c t u r e d"
might be taken at first sight to be a simple
word having widespread and unambiguous
currency; closer examination, however,
reveals the use of the word in many
differing ways; in some instances the word
implies virtual creation, in others alteration
of appearance rather than make-up, of
shape rather than substance. The second
rule would apply in so far as there was
ambiguity or doubt as to the meaning of
the word.
The Supreme Court cited with approval
the approach of Murphy J. in construing
somewhat similar legislation in the case of
M. Cronin (Inspector of Taxes)
-v-
Strand
Dairy Limited
when he expressed the view:
"It seems to me, therefore, that one
must look at the goods alleged to have
been manufactured and consider what
they are, how they appear, what
qualities they possess, what value
attaches to them. One then looks at the
process and seeks to identify to what
extent that process conferred on the
goods the characteristics which they
are found to possess . . . the question is
to a large extent one of degree."
The question to be put is not whether the
ordinary
person
would
describe
the
bananas which have been subjected to the
ripening process as "manufactured goods"
but rather whether the ordinary person on
being adequately informed as to the fore-
going matters would attribute the word
"ma n u f a c t u r e" to the ripening process.
In aid of construction of the particular
word as used in the Statute however one
must look to the scheme and purpose as
disclosed by the Statute or the relevant part
thereof. The scheme and purpose of part
IV of the Act was, by tax incentives, to
encourage the creation of employment
within the State and the promotion of
exports. The operation described in the
case stated clearly came within both
categories.
HELD:
It is a matter of degree itself a question
of law, as to whether or not what the
company has done to the raw material
makes it goods within the definition in
Section 54. The ripened bananas, having
been subjected to the process as described,
constitute a commercially different product
and one within the definition. The appeal
was accordingly allowed.
Charles
McCann
Limited
-v-
S.
O'Cualachain
(Inspector
of Taxes)
—
Supreme
Court (per McCarthy
J.
nem.
diss.), 30 June 1986 —
unreported.
Desmond Rooney
xii