The Gazette 1989

GAZETTE INCORPORATE D LAW SOCIETY OF IRELAND Vol.83 No. 1Januar y 198 V i e w p o i n ts EURPHORIA

JANUARY 1989

GAZETTE

In this Issue Viewpoints

3 The Legal Implications of 1992 5 Younger Members News 10 From the President 11 Litigating in Luxembourg 13 Diary 15 Practice Notes 17 People & Places 18 Sources of European Community Law: Where to find them 20 Multi Disciplinary Partnerships 24 1992 — Completing the Internal Market 27 Book Review 31 Correspondence 32 Professional Information 33 Executive Editor: Mary Gaynor Committee: Geraldine Clarke, Chairman Eamonn G. Hall, Vice-Chairman John F. Buckley Gary Byrne Timothy Dalton Charles R. M. Meredith Advertising: Liam O hOisin, Telephone: 305236 307860 Printing: Turner's Printing Co. Ltd., Longford. The views expressed in this publication, save where otherwise indicated, are the views of the contributors and not necessarily the views of the Council of Ihe Society. The appearance of an advertisement in this publication does not necessarily indicate approval by the Society for the Product or service advertised. Published at Blackhall Place, Dublin 7. Tel.: 710711. Telex: 31219. Fax: 710704. Daire Murphy John Schutte

continued economic health the profession depends, to assess the impact of the internal markét programme in the case of each individual company. The company solicitor, indeed, has an active role to play in that assessment and must fully familiar- ise himself with the huge changes which Europe is currently causing to the legal climate in which industry must compete. As Peter Sutherland points out elsewhere in this Gazette, the 1992 Program, indeed the whole European integration process, is composed of law and it behoves all lawyers to master it and bring it to the attention of their clients. If this does not occur soon, then a new word may have to be coined and addressed to both Irish industry and the legal profession - 'Eurlosingout'! • CHILD ABDUCTION A number of recent cases which involved the alleged abduction of children either from or to Ireland by estranged parents has highlighted the absence of any proper legal structure governing such cases. In 1985 the Law Reform Commission recommended that Ireland should adhere to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction but action does not appear to be imminent. At that time the Department of Justice was also considering Ireland's adherence to a Council of Europe Convention on Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions Concerning Custody of Children and Restoration of custody of children. Ireland actually signed this convention subject to ratification in 1980. It is notorious that Ireland's record of ratification of International Conventions is deplorable though occasionally this may be justified by the fact that some of the Conventions have found little support elsewhere. Contd. on pago B

The publication last month of a comprehensive survey of '1992 Readiness' within Irish industry conducted by The Marketing Ins- titute is profoundly disturbing. It provides hard statistical evidence, firstly, that Irish industry is highly aware of 1992, secondly, is extremely optimistic about it and thirdly has no proper basis for this optimism. The survey, conducted in October 1988, shows 74% of the Chief Executives questioned viewed the likely impact of 1992 as 'favourable', 10% thought it could go 'either way' and only 14% believed it would be 'unfavourable'. The most revealing responses, however, were those which showed that 77% of companies had made no assessment whatso- ever of the impact which 1992 would have on them and indeed 40% went on to state that they did not even plan to do this in the future. More worrying still was the fact that the replies showed a wide- spread and deep misunderstanding of what 1992 was all about. The research concluded that there was a situation of "dangerous com- placency". There is a high awareness of 1992 but not of what it means. Worse, there is a belief that it means something different from what it really does. If we were to follow the Govern- ment into word play we could say that 'Europen' has led to a dangerous 'Eurphoria'. There is a strong argument to be made that 1992 will be anything but an unmixed blessing for Irish industry. Whatever the balance of benefits and threats of 1992 may be, however, there can be no questioning the need to address the issue and prepare for it. Every business in the country has solicitors who advise it. The legal profession has not played a sufficient role to date in urging its commercial clients, on whose

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