The Gazette 1975

who are acting in accordance with the law. They may be bending the law. They may be very clever and may have advisers who are very clever assisting them in doing this but, because what they are doing is reprehen- sible and, in the Minister's view is the equivalent of breaking the law, he is advising the doctrine that every- body has the obligation to get after these people irre- spective of what that costs in the way of citizens' rights, in the way of the loss of the privilege attaching to the relationship between solicitor and client built up over centuries for the protection of the individual and the citizen. The Minister could not have thought out the implica- tions of what he is saying or he would not have said what he did. I want to suggest again that the informa- tion, in the case of solicitors, which may be obtained under this section is that available otherwise to the Revenue Commissioners. The actual information being obtained from solicitors under this is virtually useless to the Revenue Commissioners. The point is, if one can justify this encroachment on the grounds put forward by the Minister, then one can justify much greater encroachments. The Minister cannot even justify it on the grounds of the necessity to obtain this information. Before the Revenue Commissioners would even seek to obtain such information from a particular solicitor they would have to have a particular client in mind about whose activities they wanted information. If they have that, they are going to get no information from the solicitor that is not available to them in other ways. Yet, we have this serious encroachment, serious in its implications, being built into this section for purposes totally ineffective so far as the Revenue Commissioners are concerned. In my view it is completely unjustified. Mr. O'Malley: I want to support this amendment and what Deputy Colley has said. This amendment, in substance, is almost precisely the amendment which he and I had down to the Finance Bill last year, which in fact was never discussed by the House or taken be- cause the whole second half of the Finance Bill was guillotined through by the Government without any discussion, coming up to the end of July, after there had been an abnormal delay in the publication of the Bill. It illustrates the danger of not discussing Bills of this nature adequately in the House because that sec- tion we sought to amend last year got through. Unfor- tunately this is a Committee Stage of a particularly complicated Finance Bill. It creates no public interest. There are probably one or two pressmen here. It was recognised for centuries in the Common Law that there were certain people to whom ordinary citizens could go for advice and could open up their hearts about their problems and troubles. The ordinary citizen had confidence that, come what may, whatever he said to his solicitor, barrister, confessor, doctor or anyone else in that position, that confidence would never be broken. Under a statute of the Oireachtas brought in last year by the Minister for Finance, that confidence and trust can no longer be regarded as being in accordance with

the law. If a solicitor, accountant or barrister does not disclose what was told to him privately on a totally privileged and confidential basis by his client, he will break the law. Deputy Colley validly pointed out that this is simply a matter which is sought to be remedied in the eyes of the Minister by section 59 of the Finance Act, 1974. This is simply a matter of tax avoidance. It is regarded by the Minister as so serious from the point of the view of the State that he is prepared to force this House to legislate against the retention of that confidential and privileged relationship. If the State feels entitled to legislate away this confidentiality and privileged relationship in relation to a comparatively trivial thing like tax avoidance, a for- tiori is not the State entitled to legislate it away in more important things, such as the crime of murder? If the police force have reason to suspect a certain individual of having committed a very serious crime, watches him, sees him approach a priest of his religion and discuss privately with the priest some matter, whether in the confessional or a situation that would be akin to it, is there not, on the basis of the Minister's argument, a greater justification for the police being given power to compel that priest to disclose what was said to him than there, is under section 59 to compel a solicitor to disclose information because the Revenue Commis- sioners suspect tax avoidance on the part of his client? Murder is a far more serious matter than tax avoid- ance. Can any doctor feel sure that if this Government forced through section 59 of the Finance Act, 1974, that the Minister for Health will not bring in com- parable legislation to compel doctors to disclose certain facts which should be confidential between the patient and the doctor? Is there any relationship left, after this principle is established, that can be regarded as safe, as sacred or as privileged? The whole doctrine of a Com- mon Law through the centuries preserved, often at great cost, the sanctity of a privileged relationship. Sec- tion 59 of the 1974 Act destroyed that and for the most trivial of reasons. I can only remind the Minister that when he sat on this side of the House we had long tirades from him about the protection of human rights, not alone in Ireland but in obscure countries all round the world. To the extent that he is in a position to do things and control matters, can he find nothing better to do but to destroy, at the request of the Revenue Commissioners, a privileged, deeply confidential rela- tionship between solicitors and their clients? Let him remember this : he is not doing any great harm to solici- tors. All they have to do to comply with the law is to tell the Revenue Commissioners. The people being harmed are their clients and they are not all rich men. Every client of every solicitor is potentially at risk now and not necessarily in relation to tax avoidance.

[Note: The final Part III of this debate will be pub- lished in the October Gazette.]

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