Irish Examiner view: We must look more closely at protests by lawyers and gardaí
Difference The The Picture: Actions, Leaping To Actions Groups, Is That Cummins As And ' Noting Taken, Reasons Worth A Legal Larry System Difference The For In Those Those And A By Whole About Before Stock Conclusions 'there’s Clear
At first glance, it looked like the entire Irish legal system was collapsing on Tuesday, with lawyers and gardaí alike taking industrial action. Examining the issues more closely, however, reveals a nuanced picture.
Members of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) refused voluntary overtime on Tuesday, while barristers went on strike. The former took action in protest at the proposed changes to their rostering arrangements, while the latter are seeking the restoration of legal aid fees to pre-financial crash levels.
There’s a clear difference in the actions taken, and the reasons for those actions, by those groups, and that difference is worth noting before leaping to conclusions about the legal system as a whole.
Part of the motivation of such protests is to bring grievances to light for a wider audience. How is the public likely to view these events?
There was an unfortunate coincidence for one of the groups involved, given that on Tuesday we also saw the publication of a league table of 150 brands in the latest annual customer experience report compiled by the CX Company.
That league table saw An Garda Síochána ranked 137th out of those 150 brands, which suggests a high level of dissatisfaction with the force among the public at large — dissatisfaction which is likely to reduce sympathy for gardaí.
As for the legal profession in general, perhaps the most delicate way to describe the public’s reaction to barristers going on strike for better pay would be a general sense of bemused indifference.
However, the right of all to protest over working conditions and pay is a cornerstone of a democratic society, incongruous as that may appear to some. The Irish justice system — in the widest sense — may have come under pressure on Tuesday because of actions taken by gardaí and barristers, but they are also entitled to take those actions. Exercising those entitlements may impinge on certain other freedoms temporarily, but that is a small price to pay for maintaining a permanent democracy for all.
The Planning and Development Bill came through the Cabinet on Tuesday, which means we are one step closer to seeing the fine detail of the legislation.
The purpose of the bill seems deceptively bland — it aims to make the system capable of delivering faster decisions on planning matters while also being more transparent and easier to use for both the public and stakeholders in the construction industry. The fact that the bill is expected to be well over 700 pages long — the third longest in the history of the State — is probably a more accurate representation of the level of difficulty involved.
The whole area of planning and development cuts across so many different areas — legal, financial, environmental, administrative — that only a mammoth piece of legislation like this bill will suffice to bring some kind of order.
Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien’s acknowledgement on Tuesday that he expects more amendments as the bill goes through the Oireachtas sounded like a masterpiece of understatement. On that basis, it is worth pointing to his concession that the debate on the bill may run into 2024, despite the urgency of the ongoing housing and accommodation crisis.
Notwithstanding that urgency, it is far better in the long term for this bill to be debated fully and amended appropriately rather than rushing it through the Oireachtas — only to find it deficient when it comes into effect because of that rush.
Reform in this area is badly needed, most immediately for the sake of hard-pressed citizens seeking certainty on housing, but also to bring an end to the litany of eye-opening scandals associated with planning and development.
Matters as various as the ongoing and varied travails of An Bord Pleanála, to the astounding testimony heard recently about Nama’s holdings in Donegal underline the need for the new bill. And the need to get it right.
The CX study mentioned above has bad news for RTÉ, with the national broadcaster rated last in a survey of 150 brands. This is a clear indication of the impact of recent scandals in Donnybrook. This was acknowledged by director general Kevin Bakhurst in his comments on the survey when he said: “We continue to work hard to restore trust in the organisation.”
The breakdown in trust comes against the backdrop of RTÉ’s announcement this week that its Aertel service will no longer operate after October 12.
Almost four decades in service, Aertel first went live on an experimental basis in 1986 before being formally launched the following year, though it has been running digitally since 2019.
RTÉ disclosed this week that providing the service was becoming more difficult as less support technology was available for it, the very definition of obsolescence.
For many readers Aertel was the world wide web of its day, a treasure trove of last-minute holiday deals, TV schedules, and sports results.
In the case of the latter, the slow updates and gradually changing scoreline in particular lent many afternoons a sweet agony unmatched by the instantaneous gratification of smartphone notifications nowadays.
It would be an interesting academic exercise to measure the level of trust in Aertel as a service in its heyday compared to the level of trust in RTÉ now.
The results of such an exercise this week would hardly encourage the national broadcaster.