The Gazette 1961 - 64

in the drawing up of a will or is a beneficiary under it. Suppose a doctor helped to draw up a will under which he benefited and the testator died under peculiar circumstances then the doctor could not hold the inquest. The term ' is a beneficiary ' is very narrow. It would not apply, for instance, if a solicitor drew up a will under which his wife, his family, relatives or friends were to benefit. I do not see why it should not be extended to cover the complete range of full testamentary disposition. If a coroner has assisted in the drawing up of a will, no matter who benefits, he should not hold the inquest on the body of the testator. The phrase is far too narrow. If it were changed to ' a will under which he benefits ' or ' which benefits him ' that would be a different matter. Being a beneficiary under a will is a very technical matter and I suggest it would be better to say that if a coroner had occasion to draw up the testamentary disposition of the deceased he should not hold the inquest. MR. HAUGHEY : I have a certain amount of sympathy with Deputy McGilligan's point of view in this matter. This is a new provision and the entire concept of subsection (2) is new to law. We want to ensure that there will be no conflicts of interest between the two capacities of the coroner and this concept deals with the case where there is a solicitor-coroner. I think it desirable that the coroner should, as far as possible, have no connec tion whatever with a deceased or his affairs. However, we must be practical about this and realise that we cannot put too many impositions on the coroner. We can visualise the situation in a country town where the solicitor-coroner has a large practice. As we all know, there will be an accumulation of wills in any solicitor's office which have been drawn up over the years and left in the solicitor's safe. We would be putting an undue obligation on a solicitor-coroner if we compelled him on every occasion when he was about to carry out an inquest to go through the accumulated wills in his office and ascertain that he had not drawn up the will of the deceased. However, I think the suggestion made by Deputy McGilligan is a good one which would probably meet both our points of view. I undertake to have another look at the actual wording of the provision and see if we might expand the concept of ' beneficiary' somewhat. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Section 35, as amended, agreed to." FEES FOR LEGAL PROCEEDINGS "125. Mr. M. P. Murphy asked the Minister for Justice whether in view of the hardship caused to

members of the general public by the uncertain nature of the cost of legal proceedings of any kind he will investigate the possibility of the setting out of a scale of charges to be adhered to by members of the legal profession for normal legal transactions and proceedings. MR. HAUGHEY : I do not accept that there is such uncertainty in the matter of legal costs as to cause hardship. Costs in court proceedings are prescribed by the rules made by the rules committees of the various courts and, in general, refer to the costs which the unsuccessful party may be ordered to pay to the successful party. Except in the case of the district court, where the prescribed costs may not be exceeded, provision is made for allowing higher costs in exceptional cases. Any costs payable on a solicitor and client basis over and above the prescribed costs can be agreed between the solicitor and his client and in default of agreement may be taxed by a Taxing Master. Solicitors' costs in non-contentious business are regulated by orders made under the Solicitors Remuneration Act, 1881 and, in relation to Land Registry business, by the Land Registration Rules. Owing to the variety of circumstances affecting even normal legal transactions and proceedings it would be impossible to prepare standard scales. MR. M. P. MURPHY : The average person does not know what his costs are going to be. Surely the time is at hand when some scale should be publicised to enable the public to know to what they are committed in law courts and land convey ancing ? MR. HAUGHEY : The Deputy will appreciate that there are several different matters involved. First of all, the question deals entirely with the cost of legal proceedings and the possibility of the setting out of a scale of charges to be adhered to by members of the legal profession. The Deputy will appreciate that is only one aspect. In so far as those charges are concerned, they are very well regulated, either by rules of court or otherwise. They are known or should be known and can be made known to prospective litigants. There are of course other factors which affect the cost of legal proceedings. Those factors, I may say, are not mentioned by the Deputy in his question but it is very difficult to make known in advance what the cost of any patticular legal proceedings will be because one of the factors is the amount of time they will take. Having said all that, I want to intorm the Deputy that the Programme ot Law Reform in which my Department is engaged, and as set out in the White Paper pub lished recently, envisages the setting up of a com mittee to investigate the procedure and practices in 94