Committee Reports > List of Committees > Dáil > 1990 > Committee of Public Accounts > Final Report - Appropriation Accounts 1988

APPENDIX 32

Chairman,

Committee of Public Accounts,

Leinster House,

Dublin 2.

Dear Chairman,

Following certain observations by a member of your Committee during its examination of the 1988 Appropriation Accounts of this Office regarding the possibility of retaining solicitors as well as barristers on a per case basis in the Dublin District Court, the Acting Chairman requested me to send a note to the Committee on that matter. I have discussed it with the Director who has indicated that he would be in favour of such a policy if solicitors were available for that work. At his request, I have made enquiries with the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland regarding such availability, and the matter will be pursued in the light of whatever information is furnished by the Society.

On the same occasion, when replying to a question by the same member, I mentioned a figure of £125,000 as being the estimated saving to this Office “in a year” by the employment of salaried prosecutors rather than fee paid barristers. I should have stated that that was the figure estimated in the month of May, 1988 as being the saving for the remainder of that year and I should have added that in a full year the saving estimated by this Office would have been well in excess of £250,000. I greatly regret that inadvertently I misled your Committee. I am writing this letter following reference by me to the detailed proposals made by this Office in this connection in 1988 and 1989.

MICHAEL LIDDY,

Senior Legal Assistant,

Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

5 July, 1990.