Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to discuss the Legal Services Regulation Bill. It was published on 12 October 2011 and is designed to overhaul the regulation of legal practitioners in Ireland. It implements a commitment under the EU-IMF agreement to remove restrictions to trade and competition in the legal profession. It establishes a new Legal Services Regulatory Authority, a Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal and an Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicator.

The organisation of the legal profession and the costs associated with legal services in Ireland have been subject to continuous criticism by successive official reports. The IMF-EU agreement contains a commitment to implement the recommendations of these reports, which have found that restrictive practices within the profession have stymied competition, thereby increasing costs for clients. Problematic elements include the handling of complaints, restrictive entry mechanisms, rigid business structures and a lack of transparency in the adjudication of legal costs.

This partly stems from the organisation of legal services in Ireland between two professions, barristers and solicitors, which are restricted in the way they can organise themselves. Both professions are self-regulated by their representative bodies, the Law Society and the Bar Council.

This Bill seeks to overcome these problems along five dimensions: the regulation of legal services, education and training, new business structures, new complaints-handling procedures and a new costs adjudication mechanism. Some of these, such as the reform of costs adjudication and a streamlined complaints system, are uncontroversial and have been widely welcomed by stakeholders, including the legal profession. Others, such as the proposed legal services regulatory authority and the introduction of new business structures, are controversial. The Bill includes a requirement that further policy examination be carried out by the authority on the matter.

The Bill prescribes substantial reform, which takes account of the recommendations of the reports of the Competition Authority and the legal costs working group. As mentioned, the commitment to reform the legal services market is an integral part of our EU-IMF commitments. However, it is also a pledge that the Government made in its five-year Programme for National Recovery. That pledge is to establish independent regulation of the legal profession, improve access to justice and competition, make legal costs more transparent and ensure adequate procedures for addressing consumer complaints.

In particular, the Bill establishes a new legal services regulatory authority which will have an armoury of functions and powers that will enable it to engage in comprehensive regulation of the legal profession and the legal services market. It creates an independent complaints procedure whereby consumers will no longer have to complain directly to the Law Society or to the Bar Council to obtain redress. It sets out the principles that will guide the assessment of legal costs, the key principle being reasonable costs for appropriate work done. It requires legal practitioners to notify clients in a more detailed and intelligible way about legal costs - this is an ongoing requirement and legal practitioners are required to notify clients of any matters that may increase legal costs. The Bill establishes a new office of the legal costs adjudicator to provide a modern and transparent legal costs adjudication service. It promotes alternative dispute resolution to save costs, and it lays the groundwork for the establishment and operation in the State of new business models for providing legal services by means of legal partnerships and multidisciplinary practices.

Yet again the Government is delivering on its promises and commitments. This Bill is in part fulfilling our pledge in the Programme for National Recovery as well as our EU-IMF commitments. As a result I have no hesitation in commending it to the House.

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