Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has addressed our amendments and that is fair enough.

I will raise, under Part 3, the substantive issue of the compensation fund. This is an area of understandable concern for the Law Society. It has made a detailed submission to the Minister and the committee members on this. It is a reasonable point they make. The Minister has stated that the State and the taxpayer would not want to take on the financial burden of compensating clients for the dishonesty of all, if, as has occurred, it materialised where there is a requirement for a compensation fund. What is happening here is the legal fraternity have, through a levy, put together and insured a fund that would protect the small number of clients who have been victims of corrupt behaviour. That is a good development and we need that to continue.

The issue that the Law Society raises is that the society needs to have teeth. There is a compensation fund which is backed up by insurers but the insurers need to see that the Law Society can move quickly and enforce the disciplinary issues that arise. Also, sometimes one may have to seek a High Court injunction or try to freeze money, try to have control, in other words, one has set up a compensation fund, one has levied solicitors, one has an insurance interest in that and to keep that at an affordable level for solicitors, one needs to be able to demonstrate clearly that one has the enforcement capacity.

In fairness, from my reading of the Law Society's submission in this regard, the society is not arguing that it retains full enforcement. They are arguing for some type of a co-operation with the new regulatory authority. I am sure the Minister can appreciate the dilemma here is that it has fragmented what is being proposed. On the one hand, the financial fiscal responsibility for the dishonesty of some individual solicitors still rests with the Law Society but the society does not have any role in the enforcement and, indeed, what is being outlined is quite a cumbersome process.

I reserve the right to bring forward amendments on Report Stage but I ask the Minister to engage with the Law Society - I am not sure whether this applies to the Bar Council also - to address the concerns. The concerns they raised are legitimate. It is in the public interest that a compensation fund be retained and it is also in the public interest that the independent regulatory authority co-operates and oversees the process. I hope some halfway house can be found to address the understandable concerns that have been outlined to us.