Alex White bills Archives

White calls for change in tone of debate on Legal Reform

3rd February 2012

Alex White has called for a change in the tone of the current debate on legislation to reform legal services in the State. Speaking in the Dail Alex said:

“The tone of the debate in recent months has been unfortunate. There has been overstatement on the part of the professions as to the implications of some of the Bill’s proposals….but there has also been overreaction to that overstatement… including references to cabals, and allegations of people trying to stay in the nineteenth century. A change of tone in the debate is required in the coming weeks and months when decisions will have to be made regarding the final content of the legislation. We need to lower the temperature of this tense debate….so that we come to the best possible outcome - not for any one interest group, but for the citizens we represent.

“As a practising lawyer and a member of the Bar, I have been disappointed by the slowness of reform and an unwillingness in the past on the part of the professions to embrace or promote change. This has led to a situation whereby people now feel they are victims of change, instead of themselves taking the opportunity, when it is there, to advance proposals for change to the way things are done.

“For example, there is a need to address the question of equity within the legal professions, and in particular the distribution of work at the Bar, to facilitate younger barristers coming into the profession - people who are willing and well able to work. That has not been done but it is an area that should have been addressed and still requires to be addressed. People have been slow to embrace that.

“The independence of the legal profession is critical in any democracy. It is actually a test of the strength of a democracy. All litigants – rich or poor – are entitled to be represented by absolutely fearless advocates, who are never threatened by any attempts to trample their independence. They must not have any concern about repercussions, either from the Government or elsewhere.

“This issue is also related to economic rights. Prospective foreign investors need to understand and appreciate that we have a fully independent legal profession that is beholden to no one, be it the Government or anyone else. It is therefore absolutely vital that that independence should be protected.

“It is not a formalistic matter. I have heard people saying that there is nothing in the Bill that undermines the independence of an individual practitioner. It is a bigger issue than that, however. One must consider carefully the proposed new Authority, for example. The method of appointing the Authority is essential to ensuring the independence of the profession and it is not an incidental question. Nor should the raising of this issue be taken as a criticism of the Minister or the Government. It has to do with the manner in which people perceive that Authority. They need to be sure that it is entirely at arm’s length from the Government, and that it is independent not just in the operation of its functions - which one would assume - but in every way. There should be no sense on the part of any Authority members that they are beholden to the Government, even where is no such intention on the part of the Government.

“The Minister is open to amendments on the means of appointment to the Authority. It is necessary to amend the provision. There are many ideas on how this can be achieved. Other professions, including the medical profession, have a good statutory regime for the appointment of the independent regulator in their cases. These are the parallels we should be looking at”.

Extending the Guarantee

30th September 2010

Last night, the Seanad was invited to extend the guarantee covering Irish banks that was first put in place in September 2008. This was before we were told the final bill for Anglo Irish Bank, which was announced only this morning. The extension was carried by a margin of 6 in the Seanad. The following is an edited transcript of my speech…

It is not irresponsible to oppose, to test government policy or to seek to amend it. The opposition at any period of a country’s history performs a major task for the body politic precisely by being in a position to test, criticise, query and, if it judges it to be appropriate or necessary, oppose. It is for a government to ensure its policies are sufficiently well argued in public and in parliament and that it has sufficient support among the members of a parliament to get those policies through. Opposition parties must exercise a sense of responsibility and, especially at moments such as this, restraint in how they present their arguments, marshal their arguments and participate in the debate. I do not disagree with that for one minute.

I do not believe we have time at this point to rehearse all the arguments that were gone through in the days and weeks after 29 September 2008. I assure the House that at all times the position taken by my party, then and since, has been motivated by no other objective than the interest and common good of the country. The fact we took a different view and opposed a proposal brought forward by the Government does not and should not in anyone’s eyes lessen in any way or suggest to anyone, either in this House or outside, that a political party that takes an opposite view is somehow offside, cannot be relied upon or is in some way undermining the common good. The opposite is the case.

We do not have time to deal with or go back through all the arguments we had then. Some of them have been touched on because they are still live and relevant. That is the basis upon which the guarantee was presented at the time and the basis of the claims that were made for the guarantee. Senator Boyle says it has been very successful. I do not know how it is possible for anyone to say it has been successful. While it would be difficult for me to say definitively that it will historically be proven to be unsuccessful, I do not know how Senator Boyle can say it has been successful because it will not be possible to pass that judgment for many a long year from today. I can understand him defending it but to suggest it has been a success seems contingent on many different things that lie in the future such that it is not possible to make the point.

At the time of the original guarantee legislation in regard to which this proposal is an amendment, the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, stated:

There is understandable concern that the Exchequer is potentially significantly exposed by this measure. This is not the case. The risk of any potential financial exposure from this decision is significantly mitigated by a very substantial buffer made up of the equity and other risk capital in the relevant institutions. It is estimated [he does not say by whom] that the total assets of the six financial institutions concerned exceed their guaranteed liabilities by approximately €80 billion, which is half of Ireland’s total GNP. By any measure there is, therefore, a very significant buffer before there is any question of the guarantee being called upon.

I note the narrative has moved in recent days and weeks in the view of Ministers and certainly former Ministers, such as Deputy O’Dea, and I saw the Minister of State, Deputy Curran, nod his head when someone made the point that the banks had lied to the Government. It may well suit the Government that the narrative now becomes “the lies the banks told the Government”. It may be that lies were told and that the Government can somehow seek to portray itself as being blameless in that regard and being the hopeless victim which has been misled.

Civil Partnership Bill is major step forward in a relatively dark period for the country

8th July 2010

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on Second Stage of this hugely important and momentous legislation. The Labour Party enthusiastically supports the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations for Cohabitants Bill 2009. We will try to amend it in some areas and, while we can to some extent predict the Minister’s response to our proposals, we will push them as strongly as we can. We hope to expand on the vital work done on this Bill with further legislation when the Labour Party is in Government.

I think this is the first time since I entered the Oireachtas three years ago that I have commended the Government on any issue but I am happy to congratulate it on bringing this legislation before the Houses. I also acknowledge the heavy lifting that was required from the Green Party in order to bring the matter to its present status.

When we discuss this Bill in more detail on Committee Stage, we should not forget that we are trying to improve the lives of individual citizens. We should, therefore, also congratulate the thousands of campaigners who have fought for this legislation. None of this would happened without people who were prepared to go to meetings, spend time on campaigns and work out how incremental change could be achieved. Perhaps some felt they were compromising themselves while others wanted to progress their goals without being seen as incrementalists but they made the same intelligent political decision as so many other figures in history by accepting this Bill as legislation that could be achieved and leaving for another day the fight to build something better. For that reason, I am delighted to be a Member of this House as this Bill comes before us.

11 years after Labour Bill on Whistleblower Protection, we still wait

3rd June 2010

One of the most frustrating things about debates on transparency and the need for new legislation and measures to deal with whistleblowing and related matters is the extent to which people give the impression that there has only been a recent discovery or realisation of the necessity for such measures. Senator Dan Boyle hopes there will not be another general election before something is done about this, but there have already been two general elections and we are well into the third Oireachtas since this issue was raised for public debate in 1999 by Deputy Pat Rabbitte who published a Bill that year to deal with this issue.

It is fully 11 years since this matter was first raised for public debate. It is simply not good enough for anyone, be they a Minister, supporter of the Government or otherwise, to imply that these matters are now coming forward for public consideration and concern and must be addressed in the light of what has happened recently. We knew about these issues many years ago. There is little use in people saying that now we have seen the dreadful things that have occurred which we never thought would happen - the subtext being that they never thought there would be a problem - but on which we have been proven wrong, we must do something about it. It is simply not good enough to give the people that excuse.

The Minister of State referred to the conclusion of the Company Law Review Group. Bluntly, the company law review group is wrong. When we are considering its report and when we are pointing out, as the Minister of State did, the fact that this group of eminent individuals came to this conclusion, we should bluntly state that the conclusion was wrong. Had these matters been considered in the depth and with the realism with which they should have been considered, the group would have come to a different conclusion. Mr. Paul Appleby and Mr. Michael Halpenny, the representative of the ICTU, were the two lone members of the group who maintained the view that it was necessary to bring forward a report that proposed robust whistleblower protection and legislation. When considering the balance sheet of what has occurred, I believe the best way for the Minister of State to view that group’s report is to conclude that it was wrong. We must do something different from what it recommended.

Govt needs less wishful thinking in dealing with the economy

24th March 2010

The Finance Bill began in the Seanad this morning. Following a speech by the Minister, I rose with my own contribution. You can read it below.

Particularly in this area of discussing the economy and our future, I am all in favour of hope. We all want to have a debate that is characterised by hope so that we can be genuinely positive and face the future in that vein. That is the basis upon which any of us would come to this debate. Certainly, there is need for a restoration of hope and confidence in the economy.

However, my problem with this debate is that while a number of speakers stated they hope that things will happen, it has been characterised by a significant degree of what I can only describe as wishful thinking, not entirely - in some cases, not at all - based on the facts.

It started out this afternoon with the Minister’s speech. The Minister treated us to an account of what he describes as “tentative signs that the economy is beginning to stabilise on a number of fronts.” He spoke of unspecified key macro-economic and fiscal data releases being generally in line with expectations. He repeated that growth is likely to return in the second half of the year and re-establish itself on a full-year basis in 2011. He also repeated his famous phrase from his Budget Statement that the economy is now turning the corner. On today’s lunchtime news, the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Deputy Batt O’Keeffe, was somewhat less positive than this, couching his remarks along the lines that he felt we have come close to a situation where we might turn the corner, which is somewhat different.

I long for the day, as many people do, that the economy genuinely turns the corner. However, I vehemently disagree with politicians, particularly those in positions of power, seeking to persuade people on the basis of assertion that a new state of affairs has come about because, as of yet, it simply has not.

The second example of wishful thinking came from my colleague Senator Boyle. Earlier, he indicated he was initially sceptical when last summer the Minister for Finance, with little discussion, changed the configuration between cuts and revenue measures that would make up the €4 billion to be taken out of the economy this year. However, Senator Boyle came around to the view that the Minister got the balance about right. No one has explained to me, or could if they were being honest, how they believe the Minister got that balance right.

Labour Bill to bring law in line with reality

15th March 2010

Speaking at the Launch of Labour’s ‘Guardianship of Children Bill 2010’

The Bill we are publishing today will bring our law and practice into line with the reality of life for many thousands of families in Ireland.

Largely because of the peculiarly strong Family provisions in Article 41 of the Constitution, we have failed to recognise that very many people nowadays live in stable and loving relationships and families which are not families in the traditional sense.

The emphasis in the Bill is not on competing or conflicting rights of parents, but rather on the rights of the child to the care and responsibility of both parents - married or not.

It will bring Ireland into line with important provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and also the European Convention on Human Rights.

Taken together with the significant potential for enhancing children’s rights represented by the proposed Children’s Rights amendment to the Constitution, this Labour Bill would bring a very real advance for children. It would also confer legal recognition in a more equitable fashion on the responsibilities of both parents for the care and upbringing of their children.

More :: Guardianship of Children Bill 2010

What service will politicians provide in response to floods?

27th November 2009

When politicians ask themselves what service they can give to the people in the context of the flooding crisis, it pertains to what should be done in the future. In part, Members can give voice and have a role in giving voice to people who are faced with this situation on a daily basis. I refer to those whose homes and lives have been destroyed or almost destroyed in many cases. While this is important, others such as the media can do it as well and people can do it themselves. One can see and hear the frustration of people on radio and television. However, politicians operate in a completely different context. Most importantly, their role pertains to deciding what to do to ensure such things do not happen again.

Otherwise, they have no real role. Members have been debating the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill in this House in the past week or two. I consider it to be good legislation in the main and my party has made this clear in the course of the debate. If memory serves, it includes a reference in the context of development plans to the risk associated with flooding. The Minister needs to re-examine this legislation in the context of returning to this House on Report Stage and subsequently to the Dáil, to ascertain whether it can be strengthened further. I wager that in practically every case in which houses and developments have been built on flood plains over the past ten to 15 years, some lone voice who stood up to argue against it was told he or she was anti-investment, anti-building, anti-progress or anti-something and was shot down over it.

From my personal experience of being on a local authority in an urban area, I know this is what happens to people who raise genuine issues, including people in my party and in this House in respect of improper, ill-advised and inappropriate development and planning carried out in an improper and unsustainable way. This is the difficulty we face. It is not simply about the weather. Some people across this debate like to suggest this is about the weather and that the Government has no control over it and so they throw their heads back.

However, John Gibbons published a good piece in yesterday’s The Irish Times, reminding his readers that this crisis does not follow from a particularly serious period of storms. It has to do with our woeful lack of preparedness in many parts of the country. The kind of debate Members must have as politicians is to ascertain what service they will provide to the people through the planning system and otherwise to ensure there is no repetition of what has happened in recent days, rather than simply giving voice to the genuine hurt that exists.

No certainty what NAMA will bring

10th November 2009

Yesterday, the Bill that will introduce NAMA began its journey through the Upper House. The Government have insisted that the legislation must be back in the Dail by Thursday, giving the Seanad three days to deal with the Bill. Below is my Second Stage speech. Keep with the site or with the Facebook page for further updates.

It is true there are no certainties in this matter. There can be no certainty on anybody’s part. In particular, the Minister cannot be certain that what he hopes will occur will actually transpire. There can be no certainty associated with the assertion that matters will come right. None of us can be certain with regard to what is going to occur. That is a measure of how momentous and serious is this debate.

We have reached the 11th hour and the Government has signalled that the legislation will return to the Lower House on Thursday, which constitutes a curtailment of the debate in this Chamber. In such circumstances, there is a sense of inevitability regarding Members’ approach to this debate. However, this should not mean we should set aside our serious and genuine objections to what the Minister is proposing.

Like other Senators, I recognise the Minister’s good faith about the way he has approached this matter. I sometimes feel uncomfortable making that point in respect of Government Ministers. I assume good faith on the part of members of the Government, whereas other Senators often use half of the time available to them to inform a Minister that he or she is a great man or woman. I operate on the basis that the Minister for Finance is doing a professional job for the country and believe this is also the basis on which he operates. He does not, therefore, require to be congratulated. In so far as it is important to say so - particularly on a personal level - the Minister’s input has been considerable, if wrong-headed, in recent months. However, that input has been solely motivated by the need to act in the very best interests of the country.

Unfortunately, in the context of what has occurred in the past 15 years, the Minister is dealing with a legacy created by the Government and his party, as a component thereof. It is fine for Senator MacSharry to express his frustration and annoyance that this point continues to be raised. I will not treat him to a few minutes’ worth of material on the Galway tent. Owing to time constraints, I will not refer at all to the history of Fianna Fáil, its associations, etc. but if I had time, I would gladly do so. I am referring to Fianna Fáil as the party of Government; I am not dealing now with its historic links with the building industry or anything else. Fianna Fáil was in office when our current difficulties emerged. It was in power when my party brought forward proposals in the late 1990s to examine the matter of house prices.

At that time my party argued, in trenchant terms, that there was no requirement to amend the Constitution in order to implement the principal recommendations made in the Kenny report which was published over 35 years ago. These issues were canvassed and debated during the lifetime of the last two or three Administrations. It is not satisfactory for those opposite to simply state they are not to blame and that everything happened around them and that they had nothing to do with it. That is simply not the case.

NAMA Seanad debate to be only three days

3rd November 2009

I refer to next week’s business dealing with the NAMA legislation. The Government has already made it clear publicly that it intends to curtail debate in this House. It announced the legislation would return to the Dáil on Thursday week, 12 November. It has already made it very clear that the debate will finish here on Wednesday night. That will amount to the guts of three days’ debate in the House. We know that decision has already been made. It is intended to finish the debate on Wednesday night or Thursday morning next week.

It is odd to read in the newspapers today that the Minister for Finance intends to introduce further amendments, amendments that are so complex - I understand this is the way in which it has been reported in the newspapers today - that he is not in a position to introduce them this week. He requires more time and will not be able to introduce them until next week and he will do so in the Seanad. If he must take a further week to devise and deal with the amendments, how are we expected to deal with such complex matters in a period of one day or one day and a half? We will do our best to do so but it is extraordinary, since there have been months of preparations for this legislation.

However, the Government seems to take the view that when legislation goes to the Dáil and to Seanad in particular, this constitutes the end rather than the beginning of the debate, and that the real work is done by the Executive, not by the Parliament. The Government has taken this position and if I am wrong in this regard, I ask the Leader of the Seanad to disprove my point. The Deputy Leader also might agree to my proposal, which is to publish the amendments at the end of this week. The Leader should not wait until Tuesday morning to publish them but should enable Members to see them. This at least would give Members a couple of days to consider these complex amendments and an opportunity to deal with them when they come before this House. The Government should consider this not unreasonable request.

No excuses for rushing important legislation

3rd July 2009

Why is it that for many weeks there is little or legislation before the House but in the two or three weeks before the end of the session there is an extraordinary flurry of activity with measures being introduced and pushed through both Houses as is happening again now? Why is it that the Minister, the Department or those who manage the flow of business to the Houses cannot pace themselves a little better throughout the year? Why can legislation not be introduced in the House periodically in a manner that will allow it to breathe, as it were?

The Leader of the Seanad often says he does not guillotine legislation and that is true, but that misses the point. It is not a question of saying we can have an hour or two to read the legislation but of allowing the public to consider important legislation over a period of weeks. I am not suggesting that the Government never makes an effort to do that. In fairness, it does. However, that should be the universal approach to legislation, unless it is genuinely emergency legislation which must be put through the Houses in a period of days.

I have in mind some of the criminal justice legislation we are dealing with this week. There are two Bills this week and I presume the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill will be introduced in the House next week. The latter includes proposals for the considerable curtailment of the liberty of the citizen. It may well be that this is justified and that Members of the House support it but it is one of the most serious actions a parliament can take. The guarantee of last September is probably the most serious action a parliament can take in that it mortgages the future and future generations. However, in terms of the liberty of the citizen the proposed legislation provides for the expansion of the use of the Special Criminal Court and removing the important protection that juries provide.

I disagree regarding any further restriction on the use of juries. In the criminal context, in particular, it is a further restriction on the liberty of the individual, as is the introduction of secret hearings in the District Court regarding detentions and so forth. I appeal to the Leader to ensure, especially with legislation of this nature, that the public and the Houses be given an opportunity to consider such legislation over a longer time span. It should certainly be over a period of weeks and not days, as is now being proposed.

Category: bills