Labour proposes reforms to Attorney General’s office

Ivana Bacik

A private member’s bill drafted by Labour leader Ivana Bacik in response to the recent nursing home charges scandal will be debated in the Dáil today.

“I have dealt with so many people who have suffered due to a State failure, and yet had very negative, retraumatising experiences when seeking legal redress from the State, due to the State’s approach to litigation,” Ms Bacik said.

“In seeking to protect the State from legal liability, the treatment of often very vulnerable litigants tends to more closely resemble the treatment they might endure from a faceless corporate entity, not from a State that may have let someone down in a breach of duty.

“While of course it is necessary to protect the public purse, we in Labour are clear: there must be some regard in public litigation strategy for the State’s duty of care to its citizens.”

She added: “We also need to see a greater level of transparency from the office of the AG. In recent years, government practice has developed such that it is now a rarity for any advice from the AG to government to be published.

“There is no legal reason for refusing to publish this advice. Indeed, treating this advice as a secret on a blanket basis may be problematic.

“On matters of public importance — such as the need to pass the Occupied Territories Bill or making a decision not to extend the ban on no-fault evictions — there is every reason for the government to be transparent with the public,  and with opposition and backbench TDs and Senators too.”

An “overreliance” on secret advice could “obscure the decision-making process”, the Labour leader has argued.

“Questions around constitutionality or compatibility of legislation with EU law should be open for greater scrutiny by members of the Oireachtas,” she said.

“Yet TDs and Senators are routinely denied any real capacity to scrutinise legislation as the core information revealing the basis for decision-making by the Government is not made available.”

Labour’s bill would provide a mechanism for both acknowledging and accommodating public interest concerns in State litigation, and ensure that claims of legal professional privilege are not made in relation to advice of the AG referred to and relied upon by the government in explaining its policy approach to bills and resolutions before the Oireachtas.

It would also bring the Office of the Attorney General under the remit of codes of conduct for office holders that are provided for in the Standards in Public Office Act 2001.

Ms Bacik said: “This government is using the office of the AG as a cover to bat away queries around their real reasons for taking political decisions. Our bill would introduce more transparency into public discourse.

“I hope that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil can support the Labour Party in these much needed reforms.”