The Gazette 1995

OCTOBER 1995

Asked by

Gerry Ryan

about Noel

, Carroll's claims of "unethical"

behaviour by solicitors,

Ken

Murphy

recalled that Mr. Carroll has been

challenged to either substantiate or

withdraw such claims in the past both

Morning Ireland

two years ago and

later when he was invited to lunch in

Blackhall Place. "Not a dicky bird"

had been heard in response.

The Director General continued " i f

Noel Carroll

is going to go around

making allegations repeatedly as he

does that solicitors are involved in

improper and unethical behaviour

then he really has a responsibility to

provide some evidence of it and if he

doesn't provide evidence of it then

we are entitled to conclude, and I

think your listeners are entitled

to conclude, that he has no

evidence of it".

"In this regard",

Ken Murphy

now

challenges the Dublin Corporation

spokesman, "it is time for

Noel

Carroll

to either put up or shut up.

Business and Finance

In a major five-page article entitled

"Our Creaking Courts",

Business &

Finance

of 2 8 September, 1995,

examined in detail the extent to which

Ireland's Courts system is in danger of

breaking down. Dublin County

Registrar,

Michael Quinlan,

Bar

Council Chairman,

James Nugent

SC,

Law Society Director General,

Ken Murphy

and President of the

District Court,

Peter Smithwick,

were

each interviewed and provided

insights into the underfunding,

delays and inefficiencies of the

Courts system.

In an editorial on the subject

Business

& Finance

said "the much-promised

new Courts Bill proposes to place the

administration of the Courts in the

hands o f a new executive agency

leaving the judges free to concentrate

on their judicial functions. Inevitably

this has encouraged the legal

conservatives to express fears that

such an agency would undermine

judicial independence. Baloney.

Our judges are not administrators.

The sooner they are stripped o f

this role the better it will be for

plaintiff, defendant and ultimately, the

judges themselves."

Evening Herald

In the course o f an article on a mature

law graduate's frustration with the

statutory Irish exam, Law Society

Director General,

Ken

Murphy,

expressed sympathy with the

, intending solicitor's apprentice

caught, as are all others, by this

1920s legislation.

" T h e Law Society believes this is an

anachronistic law", he said. " Y o u

don't have to do an exam in Irish to

work as a doctor or dentist or architect

and we have for a long time sought

I the support of politicians to change

the rule."

Morning Ireland

On 2 October, 1995, the morning of

the opening of the new legal year, the

President o f the Dublin Solicitors B ar

Association,

Michael D. Murphy,

hit

out on the

Morning Ireland

radio

programme against the delays in the

courts. He pointed out that it now took

six times as long between setting

down and hearing o f a case in the

Dublin Circuit Court as it did in 1991.

The Government had not heeded the

warnings that this would happen

when the Circuit Court jurisdiction

was increased. He could not

understand the reason why legislation

to try to deal with the problem,

first published last autumn, had not

yet progressed.

Compo Cul ture My th

The following article by

Kieran

Conway

appeared in the

Irish

Independent

September 1, 1995

and is reproduced by kind permission.

Often unjustly blamed in a society rife

with compensation claims that may

be bogus, genuine accident victims

and lawyers are starting to hit back

against public cynicism, says

Kieran Conway.

! At the height of the latest controversy

over Ireland's alleged ' c ompo

: culture,' a furious

Michael McHugh

rang the

Marian Finucane

programme

and asked to say something on behalf

of the victim. He told passionately of

how he was injured in an industrial

accident in Poland.

While working on a construction

site he was injured by a crane and

left with severe spinal injuries to the

i neck. He was helicoptered o ff the site

and later flown to hospital in London.

! Surgery was considered too dangerous

to perform and his neck was

instead put into plaster cast for

three months.

This was in 1978, and, all these years

j later, he is, he says, still suffering. He

has been told he will continue to

suffer for the rest of his life. Seven

years after the accident he finally

received a £ 6 , 0 0 0 payment from the

i company he had worked for. This was

the first, and only, money he received.

It did not, he says, even cover the

expenses he had incurred in trying to

process his claim, far less compensate

him for his injuries.

McHugh says he was forced to settle

for £ 6 , 0 00 because he couldn't afford

to proceed through the courts in

England. There, as here, there is no

scheme of legal aid in place for

personal injury cases. Prospective

barristers wanted money in advance in

order to take on his case and he

j simply did not have it.

His reasons for ringing the

Marian

Finucane Show

was to defend the

existing 'no foal, no fee' practice,

under which lawyers agree to pursue

cases for clients who have no money

I but, the lawyers feel, good cases.

McHu g h 's point is that, had such a

practice existed in Britain at the time

- it now does - his case would have

had the chance o f being vigorously

pursued and he would have had the

chance o f receiving adequate

compensation.

The strength o f his defence is matched

by representatives of the Law Society

who are fed up with charges that they

are contributing to a c ompo culture by

ambulance-chasing practices. In

; response to adversaries that range

from employers' organisations like

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