We have recently published our Strategy Statement covering the period 2024-2026. The Strategy Statement 2024-2026 (Irish translation available here) identifies the values and objectives of the Commission and the strategies which we will pursue to achieve our objectives, fulfill our statutory mandate, and perform our functions of ensuring that the laws of Ireland are suitable for a modern State and are accessible to all. Any queries relating to this document can be addressed to info@lawreform.ie.

To facilitate as many consultees as possible making submissions in response to the questions posed in the Commissions Consultation Paper on Third-Party Funding, the Commission has decided to extend the submission deadline to 15 December 2023.

A Consultation Paper contains an analysis of issues that the Commission considers arise in a particular law reform project, together with a series of questions intended to assist consultees. A Consultation Paper does not usually contain any settled view of the Commission. It is therefore intended to provide consultees with an opportunity to express their views and to make any related submissions on the questions that arise in the Consultation Paper.  Consultees need not answer all questions and are also invited to add any additional comments they consider relevant.

Submissions can be sent in either of the following ways:  (a) You can email your submission—in whichever format is most convenient to you—to the Commission at ThirdPartyFunding@lawreform.ie or (b) You can post your submission to:  Law Reform Commission,  Styne House,  Upper Hatch Street,  Dublin 2,  Ireland.”

The Law Reform Commission is currently seeking to compile a panel of legal experts from practicing solicitors or practicing barristers, academics, legal researchers, or anyone who can demonstrate expertise in one or more of the following areas of law:

1. Knowledge of legislation, including legislative drafting, annotation and consolidation of legislation, and statute law revision
2. Public law
3. Commercial law
4. Civil law
5. Criminal law and contempt of court
6. EU law

Interested parties are invited to use the Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) advertised on the Office of Government Procurement website here to register as a Supplier on the eTendering system and to participate in this DPS.

Please find a document containing some frequently asked questions about DPS for Legal Research Expertise for the Law Reform Commission here.

Please find step by step guidelines on how to register as a supplier with e-tenders.gov.ie here.

The Commission’s Programmes of Law Reform are the principal basis on which the Commission carries out its statutory mandate to review the law and make recommendations for its reform. The Commission has, since its inception, developed five Programmes of Law Reform,  each of which was approved by the Government.

The Commission has begun work on its current Fifth Programme of Law Reform, which was approved by Government on 20th March 2019. It includes 15 projects across a wide range of key areas of law including: courts, public law & the digital era, criminal law & criminal procedure, civil liability & civil procedure, evidence, family law and land law.  It is also completing work arising from its Fourth Programme of Law Reform, which was approved by Government in October 2013. The Commission is working to complete one final project from the Fourth Programme relating to Third-Party Litigation Funding, which derives from the Commission’s project on Contempt of Court and Other Offences and Torts Involving the Administration of Justice.

During the summer of 2023, more than four years into the Fifth Programme, the Commission, with the consent of the Attorney General, conducted a review of the projects remaining on that Programme and the Fourth Programme. The objective of this review was to determine whether the remaining projects would, if undertaken, be:

1. important, relevant and respond to a real public need;
2. a prudent use of resources that did not: (i) overlap with the work of another body, or (ii) overly concentrate the Commission’s scarce resources in one project for an undue period of time.

It concluded, and the Attorney General concurred, that some of these projects had been overtaken by events since the approval of the Fifth Programme. As such, further work on these areas would no longer be a prudent use of the Commission’s resources. The projects that have been discontinued are:

In addition, the Commission concluded that some projects on the Programme, and part of one project from the Fourth Programme, should be paused with a view to giving them further consideration at a later date. Projects that are currently paused and that are not under consideration at present are:

This leaves the following projects, which constitute the Commission’s active and anticipated workload:

1. Fifth Programme, Project 2, A Regulatory Framework for Adult Safeguarding;
2. Fifth Programme, Project 7, Compensating Victims of Crime;
3. Fifth Programme, Project 12, Liability of Unincorporated Associations;
4. Fourth Programme, Project 4, Third-Party Litigation Funding;
5. Fifth Programme, Project 1, Non-Court Adjudicative Bodies and Appeals to Courts;
6. Fifth Programme, Project 14, Aspects of Family Law (Recognition of Foreign Divorces only);
7. Fifth Programme, Project 15, Aspects of Land and Conveyancing Law (Adverse Possession only).

Submissions are invited from all interested parties on the Commission’s Consultation Paper on Third-Party Litigation Funding. The relevant media release can be found here (as Gaelige). The full text of the Consultation Paper can be found here. An executive summary of this Consultation Paper can be found here.

Details of the various options to submit your response – whether verbally, by email (direct to: ThirdPartyFunding@lawreform.ie ) or by post – can be found here. Those who require a hardcopy of the Consultation Paper should contact the Commission offices at info@lawreform.ie

Contributors are requested to make their submissions/comments, if possible, before close of business on 3 November 2023.

The Commission has published a Plain English summary of its Report on Compulsory Acquisition of Land. The purpose of the Plain English summary is to make the work of the Commission easier to access and easier to understand.

Our Plain English summary only provides a summary of our Report on Compulsory Acquisition of Land. It is a guide to make our Report more accessible. It is not comprehensive. To see the Commission’s definitive recommendations, you should consult the full Report.

Law Reform Commission Publishes

Report on the Compulsory Acquisition of Land

WEDNESDAY 29^th March 2023: The  Law Reform Commission has today published a Report on the Compulsory Acquisition of Land. The report comprises a draft Bill, entitled the Acquisition of Land Bill 2023, as well as five chapters explaining the approach pursued by the Commission in reaching its conclusions. An executive summary of this report can be found here. A plain English summary of this report can be found here.

The Report deals solely with reforms in the compulsory acquisition system after the compulsory purchase order has been confirmed and becomes operative. Initially, the scope of the Commission’s examination of compulsory purchase law was wider and extended to the process from the making of a compulsory purchase order. However, in light of the development by the Government of a revised Planning and Development Bill, which would include provisions relating to compulsory purchase orders up to the confirmation stage, the Commission focussed its examination entirely on the activation and compensation processes.

In formulating its recommendations, which are encompassed in the draft Bill, the Commission’s key objective is to introduce a simplified system of acquisition and compensation that fairly balances the rights of owners whose land is being acquired and the acquiring authorities’ requirement to quickly and efficiently acquire land so that projects, which serve the public interest, can be progressed.

The key areas, which are the focus of the reform recommendations, concern  the procedures for the acquisition of land and those that relate to the payment of compensation. These are, in the main, currently governed by long-standing legislation: the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act 1845 and the Acquisition of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Act 1919, which remain the foundational frameworks that apply in Ireland for compulsory acquisition and compensation, respectively.

Under the current framework, following the confirmation of a compulsory purchase order, the acquisition is achieved by the use of a notice to treat procedure. The Commission identified multiple deficiencies in this procedure.

These include: (a) that there is no time limit within which an acquiring authority must serve a notice of entry, following service of a notice to treat; (b) where a notice of entry is served, the period in which the acquiring authority may enter possession is not limited; and (c) no compensation is payable at the time when the owner loses possession, but only when compensation is determined (although interest is payable on the compensation sum from the date of possession by the acquiring authority). Furthermore, the date upon which the land is valued to assess compensation is the date on which the notice to treat is served, while the owner will lose possession on a different, later date, and the compensation will not be assessed until a considerably later date again. This rule may operate unfairly, depending on how land values fluctuate over the relevant time period.

The Commission recommends that the notice to treat procedure should be repealed in its entirety and replaced with the vesting order procedure recommended in the draft Bill. The vesting order procedure will benefit both owners and acquiring authorities. A move to vesting orders might have to be done at different points in the future to reflect the different laws about different acquiring authorities.

Owners will benefit from the strict timelines proposed, which require the acquiring authority to proceed with the compulsory acquisition in a timely manner. An acquiring authority will have 12 months from the date the compulsory order becomes operative to decide whether it wishes to proceed with the acquisition. If it does not proceed, by the service of a vesting order within that period, the compulsory order will lapse. An owner must be given three months’ notice once the authority decides to proceed with the acquisition, so that they can arrange their affairs as required. In addition, the acquiring authority must ensure that the vesting order takes place no later than six months from the date it is served.

Acquiring authorities will get unencumbered title to the land at a much earlier stage than at present. Regardless of any title complications that may exist, ownership is vested. Under the current system an acquiring authority does not get ownership of the land until after compensation is agreed and determined and the owner proves their title.

The Commission recommends that an acquiring authority should make an advance payment of no less than 90% of the authority’s estimate of the owner’s entitlement to compensation at, or near, the time the owner loses title to their land. While this is new in Ireland, it is well established in other jurisdictions and has significant benefits for both owners and acquiring authorities. Owners will, as a result, receive a substantial sum of money before they lose possession of their land (assuming they provide proof of title). Acquiring authorities will benefit as a significant portion of the compensation ultimately payable is paid out at an early stage when the authority acquires ownership of the land. This will significantly reduce the level of interest for which they may be liable under the current system, where interest is paid on the compensation from the date it enters into possession until the date it makes the compensation payment.

The Commission recommends substantial change in the current mechanism for the resolution of disputes concerning the amount of compensation to be paid to an owner whose land is the subject of a compulsory purchase order. At present, where parties cannot agree compensation, the amount is determined by an arbitrator, known as the property arbitrator. Property arbitrators are drawn from a panel appointed by the Land Values Reference Committee, consisting of the Chief Justice, the President of the High Court and the President of the Society of Chartered Surveyors, with the assistance of the Courts Service. However, neither the Reference Committee, nor the Courts Service has direct oversight, or governance, over the property arbitrators. The Commission recommends the replacement of the current mechanism with a permanent adjudicative body, established by statute, with expertise in matters of valuation and with transparent rules relating to procedural matters. In view of its experience and expertise in valuing property for rating purposes and considering the moderate scale of activity relating to compulsory purchase order compensation disputes, the Commission recommends the Valuation Tribunal as a suitable body to carry out this function. The Tribunal will endeavour to deliver its decisions within six months from the date of receipt of applications. Reasoned decisions will be publicly available on the Tribunal’s website, as will more information on the process of determining compensation to provide guidance to parties, thus providing an increased level of transparency.

The final chapter in the Commission’s report deals with the codification of the existing principles governing the evaluation of compensation claims. These principles were contained in part in the 1919 Act and were subsequently developed through case law. The Commission proposes the codification of these principles in an Act repealing the 1919 Act, which will be a step towards increased legal certainty. Rules have been streamlined and modernised, thus making them clearer and easier to understand for owners, acquiring authorities and members of the Valuation Tribunal and should simplify the process of determining compensation.

The Report will be available on the Law Reform Commission’s website, www.lawreform.ie, from 7am on Wednesday, 29th March.

Background Notes for Editors. The Law Reform Commission is an independent statutory body whose mission is to keep the law under independent, objective, and expert review, to make recommendations for law reform, and to make current law accessible for all. The Commission strives to ensure that the Commission’s law reform publications are practical, relevant, solutions-driven and focused on the end-users of legislation. To date, the Law Reform Commission has published over 200 publications (Working Papers, Issues Papers, Consultation Papers and Reports) containing reform proposals. The majority of these proposals have influenced the drafting and content of Irish legislation.

For further information contact: Larry Donald, Heneghan 087 2581787, Michael Hall, Heneghan 087 3106238

The Commission’s Consultation Paper on the Liability of Clubs, Societies and other Unincorporated Associations has generated considerable interest. As a result, and to facilitate as many consultees as possible making submissions in response to the questions posed in the Consultation Paper, the Commission has decided to extend the submission deadline to 15 May 2023.

A Consultation Paper contains an analysis of issues that the Commission considers arise in a particular law reform project, together with a series of questions intended to assist consultees. A Consultation Paper does not usually contain any settled view of the Commission. It is therefore intended to provide consultees with an opportunity to express their views and to make any related submissions on the questions that arise in the Consultation Paper.  Consultees need not answer all questions and are also invited to add any additional comments they consider relevant.

Submissions can be sent in either of the following ways:  (a) You can email your submission—in whichever format is most convenient to you—to the Commission at UnincorporatedAssociations@lawreform.ie.   or  (b) You can post your submission to:  Law Reform Commission,  Styne House,  Upper Hatch Street,  Dublin 2,  Ireland.

The Law Reform Commission has published a Plain English version of its Consultation Paper on The Liability of Clubs, Societies, and other Unincorporated Associations.

Please find the full media release for this publication here.

The Plain English version  is designed to generate participation by the general public  in the consultation process and to encourage debate on the issues raised in the Consultation Paper. The Law Reform Commission is eager to receive responses from all quarters, particularly from those who are involved in activities carried out by unincorporated clubs and associations.

Commissioner Richard Barrett says that the issues raised and analysed in the Consultation Paper are relevant to thousands of people engaged in non-profit, community activities throughout the country:

“There are over 17,000 unincorporated bodies functioning in Ireland, providing  valuable community services in areas including sport, social services, emergency relief and cultural activities. Society benefits greatly from the contribution from members of organisations engaged in these activities, which is largely based on voluntarism. However, there are legal issues which can arise for members of these organisations, and for those dealing with them, which are not widely known, or appreciated; for example, the fact that individual members have potential liability for things that might go wrong, such as injury, or damage, to third parties.”

The key problem with the law of unincorporated associations is that such bodies are not recognised in law as having a legal existence separate from their members. This gives rise to many difficulties, including the fact that the club or association cannot sue, or be sued in their own name: legal action must be taken against the membership as a whole. Another issue that arises is that individual members of clubs or associations cannot sue their own club, even in cases of negligence.

The Plain English Summary has achieved the NALA Plain English Mark. That means that it meets international plain English standards.

The Commission invites members of the public and interested bodies to share their views by submitting their responses to a series of questions set out in the document. You can reply to some or all of the questions in the Consultation Paper.  You can also give us any other information that you think might be important for making new laws about liability of clubs, societies and other unincorporated associations. Please let us know your views:

Email:  UnincorporatedAssociations@lawreform.ie

Post:
Law Reform Commission
Styne House
Upper Hatch Street
Dublin 2
Ireland
D02 DY27

Phone: 01 637 7600

Submissions are invited from all interested parties on the Commission’s Consultation Paper on Liability of Clubs, Societies and other Unincorporated Associations. The relevant media release can be found here (as Gaelige). The full text of the Consultation Paper can be found here. An executive summary of this Consultation Paper can be found here. A plain English summary of this Consultation Paper can be found here.

Tá achoimhre ar an bPáipéar Comhairliúcháin as Gaeilge ar fail anseo: Cliceáil anseo

Details of the various options to submit your response – whether verbally, by email (direct to: UnincorporatedAssociations@lawreform.ie ) or by post – can be found here. Those who require a hardcopy of the Consultation Paper should contact the Commission offices at info@lawreform.ie

Contributors are requested to make their submissions/comments, if possible, before close of business on 15 May 2023.

The Statute Law Revision Programme (SLRP) has concluded its public consultation.