Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the issue of admissible complaints, three years is prescribed in section 2(1) for admissible complaints and that addresses some of the issues we were discussing earlier. We are going to have another look at one or two aspects of this in order to ensure that they are in sync. The Bill on mediation is complementary to what we are doing here.

In certain circumstances it creates the possibility that the legal services regulatory authority may propose, where there is a consumer complaint which the parties themselves are not able to resolve through the offices of the legal services regulatory authority itself, that the parties go to mediation rather than making the issue more long, drawn-out and expensive than may be necessary. We will not put in the Bill provisions which will be included in the mediation Bill to deal with access to mediation issues and the principles of mediation on which we are working. I see the mediation Bill as being complementary not only to this Bill but also to every circumstance in which an individual may contemplate court proceedings. There is a connectivity between them.