Given that the Minister answered 29 questions together I hope that you, Sir, will bear with me if I ask a number of supplementaries to a number of the questions. In relation to the Funds of Suitors Bill I am disappointed that only something in the region of £450,000 of this money will be going towards the Legal Aid Board.

A question.

That compares very unfavourably with the £600,000 which went to The Honorable Society of the Kings Inns and on the last occasion when the honorable society got money——

That is debating it.

I want to talk to the Minister on the Funds of Suitors Bill.

You will have to ask a question.

I hope that the £450,000 that the Minister has seen fit to give to the Civil Legal Aid Board will be used more usefully than money in the past that went to the building of luxurious wine cellars at the Kings Inns.

That is not a question; it is a speech.

It is relevant to the situation that we have——

It may be relevant some place else but it is not relevant at this time.

The Minister says that we have a three to four weeks' waiting list for people to get appointments in the Dublin area with the Legal Aid Board. That is appalling. Will the Minister agree that the Legal Aid Board are totally understaffed and that the service they provide is most unsatisfactory? The Legal Aid Board have one solicitor for 33,000 social welfare recipients. The average number of solicitors in the country is one per——

That is an Estimate speech you are making.

I want the Minister to do something to correct the awful situation that exists in relation to legal aid.

You cannot do it by making a speech.

The Minister will be aware that in the Tallaght area, for example, he has seen fit to provide only a legal aid officer with two solicitors.

I do not want to do it, but I will have to ask you to resume your seat if you continue along those lines.

Let me ask the Minister why he did not see fit to open a full legal aid community office in the Tallaght area. Will he agree that the present legal aid scheme does not allow people to have representation before, for example, employment appeals tribunals and social welfare hearings and in many housing cases and that this is very unsatisfactory and the only way we can overcome it is either by extending the range of services available——

You are at it again.

It is very difficult——

It may be but——

——when the Minister answers 29 questions. If you allow me to ask 29 supplementaries I will be able to cover the points individually.

I will allow you to ask a reasonable number of supplementaries, but try to remember that this is Question Time not an Estimate debate.

Will the Minister improve the staffing levels in the Legal Aid Board? Will he agree that they are grossly understaffed at the moment, that people are unable to get appointments in time, particularly in relation to marital problems many of which we have in the Tallaght area? The situation is most unsatisfactory, particularly if the two parties to a dispute cannot attend the same centre. Will the Minister agree that the best way of solving the situation as far as Tallaght is concerned would be by providing funds from the Funds of Suitors Bill for the opening of a proper law centre which could be staffed by the many excellent people who have staffed FLAC centres around the country?

(Limerick East): I am not too sure where to begin. I am sorry that the Deputy is disappointed. I hope that the centre being opened in Tallaght will be very beneficial in the constituency. It will involve the service of two solicitors and ancillary staff. It will provide a much needed service in Tallaght. Deputies who represent that constituency have pressed for this facility for some time and I am glad to be in a position to provide the money from the Funds of Suitors to the Legal Aid Board to enable them to provide that service. It will also help the situation in other centres in Dublin because it will reduce the pressure on them. As Deputy Harney has pointed out, quite a number of cases come from the Tallaght area and are being dealt with by the other centres at the moment.

The Funds of Suitors Bill was debated fully here and it was decided to spend money in a certain way. I reminded Deputy Harney that her side of the House put down an amendment to provide extra funds for one category which would have made the residue for legal aid smaller than it is now. More credit is due to the Seanad than to the House for twisting the arm of the Minister and getting a commitment that it would be used for legal aid rather than spent at the Minister's discretion.

I am absolutely sure of the £450,000 at the moment but I hope that at least another £0.25 million will be available for legal aid centres in the other places that I have outlined. Because of the uncertainty of the cost of the Children's Court I cannot quantify the residue, but it will be sizeable, and £450,000 is by no means the end of the story. Whatever the residue is, the bulk of it is to be spent on the provision of legal aid.

The only other point, apart from aspirational points and expressions of concern with which we all agree, is the question of tribunals. The Pringle Committee report in 1974 recommended that legal aid should be available for appearances before all courts and tribunals. However, the Government decided in setting up the scheme that tribunals should be excluded, though it is possible for an applicant to receive legal aid in connection with a tribunal hearing. A previous administration made that decision because the tribunals are intended to provide simplified, inexpensive procedures for dealing with administrative disputes without the expense of legal representation. For example, persons are frequently represented or assisted by a trade union official in presenting their case before a labour tribunal. As a matter of fact, the ICTU made representations for the exclusion of tribunals from the scope of the scheme. In that context, when people debate matters such as the abolition of juries and setting up tribunals to decide the level of, say, injury in places of work, the argument is always that it would reduce legal representation and that the tribunal would deal with the thing more efficiently because of the exclusion to a large extent of legal representation. That is the policy decision on tribunals. It was a sensible decision at the time and we should not go away from that course.

On the question of the nature of a law centre which should have been provided in Tallaght, the scheme that operates in conjunction with my Department is the civil Legal Aid Board set up by the Government, and I think it appropriate that our Minister for Justice in extending the scheme would extend it through the Government's sponsored scheme rather than in any other way. As I have pointed out, there is provision in the document which set up the Legal Aid Board for the board to become involved in a situation where there is community involvement in the running of centres. I refer the Deputy to paragraph 6.3.2 of the scheme.