Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Vote for the Office of the Attorney General is Vote 3. The Votes for the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Chief State Solicitor and the Attorney General are all related in that they are all legal entities. During 2013 the Haddington Road agreement was brokered and there was a lot of talk about the cuts that applied to those earning salaries in excess of approximately €62,000. Everyone in this room who is paid by the taxpayer had a salary reduction. A question arose as to whether that cut would apply to professional fees. The briefing note tells us that there were cuts to professional fees in 2009, 2010 and 2011. In July last year the Government decided to invoke the FEMPI legislation to implement a 7.5% cut to the professional fees paid to general practitioners, pharmacists and others who are not direct employees of the HSE. Did that FEMPI cut also apply to the legal fees at the Office of the Attorney General, the Chief State Solicitor's office and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions? I see no reference in the documentation to the FEMPI cut in that regard. Why, in 2014, will we not have a saving on professional fees? Legal fees are the biggest issue under those three headings. The troika was here and one of the biggest regrets of its representatives when they were leaving was that they had not secured reform of the legal professions. The legal profession talked out the troika for three years and the legislation to reform that profession and make it more competitive was not produced. I had assumed that the cuts to professional fees that applied under Haddington Road applied to people who were being paid by the State, as is the situation in the health sector. Has it happened in the legal area too, and if not, why not? The legal fraternity was able to out-manoeuvre the troika on legal reform for three years. Did it out-manoeuvre the Government with regard to a FEMPI cut to legal fees for the coming year?