THE administration of the courts and the prisons are being removed from the Department of Justice in the most fundamental reform of its responsibilities since the foundation of the State.
The decision to set up statutory boards to run the courts and the prisons was taken by the Government yesterday only hours before it faced a damaging confidence motion in the Dail. The memorandum proposing to strip the Department of up to half of its powers was presented to the Cabinet by the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen.
The Tanaiste, Mr Spring, meanwhile dispelled any doubts about Mrs Owen's survival in Government when he committed the Labour Party's full support to the Minister last night.
Mr Spring reviewed all developments in the latest judicial controversy with Labour Ministers on his return from the Middle East yesterday evening and later expressed his party's confidence in the Minister.
Addressing the Dail after the Coalition had been subjected to a barrage of criticism from the opposition parties in the debate on the motion of confidence, Mrs Owen revealed new details of the lapse of administrative procedures surrounding the failure to inform Judge Dominic Lynch of the Government decision of August 1st to remove him from the Special Criminal Court, at his own request.
Admitting that there might well be more information about which she knew "nothing", she told the House that she had been informed yesterday morning that a staff member of her Department had received a telephone call from the registrar of the Special Criminal Court on the evening of Tuesday, November 5th. "I do not know what other phone calls, if any, were made," she confessed.
She also published the text of three letters she had received from Judge Lynch - with his permission - on his request to be removed from the Special Criminal Court.
It was noted during yesterday's debate that the decision to remove Judge Lynch from the Special Criminal Court and replace him with Judge Kevin Haugh was reported in The Irish Times on August 2nd, the day after the Government's decision.
After the Taoiseach and the Minister for Social Welfare had reaffirmed their confidence in Mrs Owen the Dail was told by Mr Bruton that decisions had been taken to implement key recommendations of the Whitaker report on prisons in 1985 and the report this year from Mrs Justice Susan Denham and the working group on a courts commission.
An independent and permanent board, to be known as the Courts Service, would be set up within a week on a non-statutory basis, Mr Bruton said. The new body would be put on a statutory basis as soon as possible. Its chief executive would be recruited through open public competition.
Responsibility for the prison service would be transferred to an independent statutory board.
The Taoiseach's final announcement that the Centre for Management and Organisation Development of the Department of Finance had developed "a tracking system for Ministerial correspondence" drew jeers from the opposition benches.
Government spokesmen could offer only sketchy details last night of the implications of the Cabinet decision to strip the Department of Justice of day-to-day responsibility for the running of the courts and the prison service. They expressed the belief, however, that the Minister for Justice would still retain political responsibility for answering Dad questions on the operation of the new boards. They also indicated that the budgets for the board would come from the Justice Estimates.
The main thrust of yesterday's debate centred on the question of whether Mrs Owen would accept political responsibility for the serious errors in her Department.
Let me make it clear that I fully recognise that I carry political accountability for that. The issue now is how that accountability should be carried out," the Minister said.
With the opposition parties, drawing parallels between the events of 1994 and now, the Tanaiste ruled out any such analogy last night. "The situation in 1994 was that I spent a lot of time and effort looking for answers to make sure there was a fair account of what happened. And I didn't get those answers.
Mr Spring will close the debate on the confidence motion tonight,
