The Gazette 1990

GAZETTE

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990

From the President

increases should take place in the Court of the lowest jurisdiction. As many members will have seen, I resigned from the Board of the Civil Legal Aid Scheme on the 24th January last. At the same time, the Chairman of the Board, Mr. Nial Fennelly, S.C., Chairman of the Bar Council, also resigned. The reasons for our resignations have been widely publicised and my hope is that the publicity which has been given to this will have some effect in forcing the Government to fund a proper scheme. It seems to me that initially there could be great improvement if more flexibil- ity was given to the Scheme and there could be an involvement of the private practitioner. Membership of the Solicitors Financial and Property Services Company has been increasing steadily and the amount of bus- iness written has produced com- missions in excess of £250,000. Extra Consultants have now been employed by Sedgwick Dineen and I think that now a prompt and efficient service is being provided. I would urge all members to join and support this venture which enables the solicitor to provide an extra and useful service to clients. Lastly, I would like to refer to our Annual Conference which is again being held in the Hotel Europe, Killarney, from the 3rd-6th May, 1990. Within the next couple of weeks all members will receive the brochure giving details of the Conference. I think that it will be a very interesting Conference in that we have succeeded in obtaining some distinguished and varied

Speakers. Jack Charlton, Manager of the Irish Soccer Team and Eamonn Barnes, Director of Public Prosecutions, will speak on Friday and Brian Coyle, the well known art expert will give an address on Saturday morning. I would encourage all members to book early and to support the Confer- ence. •

•fL

ERNEST J. MARGETSON, President.

Since the last month's Gazette a number of developments have taken place and no doubt the members of the Profession have seen tne reports of some of these in the media. I issued a statement in January regarding the increases in stamp duty on court documents. Whilst the increases in the High Court and the Circuit Court were not very large they still do considerably increase the total expenditure in taking an action in either of these courts and this expenditure is very often borne by the solicitor. The increase however that caused me the greatest concern was the increase in District Court fees. The increase of stamp duty on a Civil Process and on a Decree were in the region of almost 200%. In many cases this will have the effect of depriving a person of limited means of having access to the District Court. It seems contrary to natural justice that the largest

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