It is easy to do at this stage.

Yes.

I move amendment No. 1: In page 10, between lines 16 and 17, to insert the following: “(3) The provisions of this Act relating to the Family District Court shall not come into operation unless a resolution approving the making of an order in that behalf under subsection (2) has been previously approved by each House of the Oireachtas.”. I welcome the Minister here today. To begin, I wish to emphasise that although I am a member of the barristers' profession, I am not a family lawyer in the conventional sense. I hav…

I welcome the Minister's assurance that she sees that a policy of just shunting cases into the District Court is not appropriate, and her indication that she intends to bring amendments on the next Stage of this legislation to that effect and make sure it will not be used as an economic dumping ground for a great volume of court work. I fully take the point that if two people have decided on a consensual divorce, there is no reason for them to go to the Four Courts and engage the activities of a High Court judge if…

On the construction of a major family law complex in Dublin, I do not know whether one will be sufficient. Half of the population lives in the greater Dublin area. However, even if it is built, my memory of the Criminal Courts of Justice at Parkgate Street is that is was done on a public-private partnership, PPP, basis. Although people in the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform were sometimes dubious about the PPP basis of that building, it was built on time and within budget and is being serv…

I am.

I support what Senator Ward has said. It seems to me that the jurisprudence of the Irish courts system depends on people being able to work out what is being decided in cases, the reasons that are being given and the policies that are being adopted in case law. If everything is shunted down a peg on the ladder, there will, as Senator Ward says, be fewer and fewer written decisions. On a point which is of some significance, the Court of Appeal's jurisdiction will, in effect, be abolished, except in most extraordinar…

Arising out of what the Minister has just stated, I point out that if one has a Circuit Court or District Court jurisdiction it is local in principle. Where I come from in Ranelagh in Dublin, there are lanes with very modest cottages on them. One can watch "Cheap Irish Homes" on television and there are some houses within 200 or 300 yards of where I live which, if they were anywhere else in Ireland, would be the subject of an item on that programme. There is one particular lane where the houses are so old that one …

On that point, I do not know how it works out. If there is going to be a property division order or a pension fund division order, is there a monetary limit on what the District Court can do or is it purely land that has these monetary values that we are dealing with?

I agree with Senator Ward. It did occur to me, but it was a Second Stage consideration, and this Bill has been two years on the waiting list to be considered on Committee Stage here. Maybe we would have been wiser to create a family court full stop with geographical divisions rather than having this wedding cake hierarchical system imitating the other jurisdictions. If we had simply just said there shall be a family court and family court judges with special training and all the rest of it who are not members of th…

I fully agree with the amendment the Minister has proposed. It is absurd that somebody who wanted to complain about how they were treated had to get the permission of somebody who they alleged had mistreated them to make a complaint in the judicial complaints process. I fully agree with that. We should think about this provision and the rule with regard to contempt of court slightly more deeply. I am fully in favour of the allowing of bona fide representatives of the media into family law cases. That was done in 20…

I thank the Minister. I sometimes felt it was just ignored and that nobody was paying attention to it. It is a serious problem. If we accord secrecy to a process, we are effectively opening up the chequebook of clients and allowing other people to write in the amounts.

This section concerns the prohibition on publication or broadcast of certain matters. It is to penalise people who make public family law matters in a manner that could lead members of the public to identify the parties in proceedings. It is a huge protection to people and, if we like, part of the constitutional protection we give to the family. People are at their most vulnerable if they are party to family law disputes dealing with issues like adultery, cruelty or coercion - you name it. In particular, they are a…

I am just saying it is toothless in its present form because of the three rather than five years provision. We should look at that again on Report Stage.

The Long Title of the Bill, which the Cathaoirleach read out so carefully, will have to be amended to include a reference to the Civil Legal Aid Act 1995.

I wish to refer to sections 95 and 96 again and reiterate what I said earlier. As far as I am concerned, this Bill abolishes the right of local authorities to determine what part of their local administrative areas the operation of casinos can take place in. Instead, section 96 comes up with a rather ridiculous proposal that they should be consulted. I have spoken about this issue before, so I am not going to delay the House now. However, what is being done here will take away a valuable power from local authoritie…

I regard the provisions in section 152 as shameful and indefensible. If, instead of subsection (1), there was a general prohibition on inducements, I would take the section seriously. Instead, subsection (1) states that it is lawful to offer inducements, provided that they comply with ministerial regulations. I wonder why it is necessary to state as a matter of law in this land that it is lawful to offer people inducements to gamble. I have said from the beginning that this legislation is designed to increase gambl…

Fine.

I deny that.

I respect your officials. I think their masters are being bought.