The Gazette 1981

INCORPORATED LAW SOCIETY OF IRELAND GAZETTE Vol. 75, No. 9. In this issue . . . Comment 207

November 1981

Comment A Welcome Arrival

T HE appearance of the new Irish Law Reports Monthly is most welcome. Law Reporting has in recent years become noticeably and regrettably inadequate, despite the best efforts of the Editor of the Irish Reports; the increase in the number (and length!) of written judgments, combined with the decline of the Irish Law Times Reports whose survival, to reverse Mark Twain's comment, has been much exaggerated, has led to an increase in the number of significant cases which remain unreported. The Digests published as "Pink Pages" in this Journal and compiled, at the suggestion of the President of the High Court by the Editor of the Irish Reports, are no more than useful signposts to the unreported judgments, which themselves have become more widely available in Law Libraries. The increasing availability of such judgments has, ironically, created further problems because of the difficulty experienced by Libraries in storing and indexing the bulky documentation. This difficulty alone makes it imperative that a higher proportion of these cases be formally reported. The decline of the Irish Law Times Report had led to informal discussions between the Law Society and the Bar Council about a possible joint venture in publishing Law Reports. A collective sigh of relief almost certainly went up when the announcement thaf Irish Academic Press, under its imprint The Round Hall Press Limited, were to undertake the publication of the new series. On the evidence of the first three issues, the standard of the Reports in the new work is satisfactory, though the notes of cases have in some instances been either inadequate or unhelpful. It is to be hoped on the one hand that the publishers will receive sufficient support for the venture from the profession to enable them to maintain publication regularly and on the long term basis and, on the other, that the publishers will ensure that the level and scope of the Reports is acceptable to the profession. It would be a pity if the duplication which occasionally arose in the past between the Irish Reports and the Irish Law Times Reports were to be repeated. There are sufficient cases of significance for both to fill all their available space and, hopefully, some modus vivendi can be worked out to ensure that the two publications are complementary. The Editorial Board of the Gazette believes that the summaries of cases which it publishes in the "Green Pages" serve a need of the solicitors' profession in a way which neither the full case reports nor the "Pink Pages" do and proposes to continue to publish such summaries for the foreseeable future. If it should turn out that the "Green Pages" become redundant, the Board will be delighted to divert the skills and labour of its Note Editor and contributors to other areas of the Law which remain untitled. • 207

Conditions of Sale and the Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act, 1980 Law Reporting and Statute Law Mergers, Takeovers and Monopolies (Control) Act, 1978

209 213

215 218 219 221

Farm/Family Partnerships Witnessing and Attestation

Apprenticeship — Some Changes ....

For Your Diary

221

Water Pollution — Strict proof required Presentation of Parchments New I.B.A. Award for Best Article .

222 223 224 225 228 229

Adjudication of Stamp Duties

Book Reviews

Solicitor's Golfing Society Professional Information

230

Executive Editor: Mary Buckley Editorial Board: Charles R. M. Meredith, Chairman John F. Buckley

Gary V. Byrne William Earley Michael V. O'Mahony Maxwell Sweeney

Advertising: Liam Ó hOisin, Telephone 305236 The views expressed in this publication, save where other- wise indicated, are the views of the contributors and not necessarily the views of the Council of the Society. Published at Blackhall Place, Dublin 7.