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

I do not understand why the Minister has gone in this direction and sought to introduce these sections or why he is going down the road of business structures, multidisciplinary practices. MDPs involving lawyers are not permitted in the following EU member states: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland – at present, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Scotland. I do not know the rationale.

This Bill was supposedly driven by the troika and the need to reduce costs because certain sectors of the Irish economy were too costly and so on. This does not address that problem. The regulatory impact analysis conducted in respect of this Bill does not include any analysis of the proposals to introduce the MDPs. It makes assertions that the evidence does not back up. The report of the Competition Authority, which was intended to lead up to this Bill, did not recommend MDPs. The regulatory impact assessment cites Scotland and New South Wales as examples of jurisdictions that have them but fails to mention the critical point that barristers are not permitted to participate in MDPs in those areas.

As a Deputy from Donegal North East, a mainly rural constituency, I am concerned.

One of the benefits of the current position is that one can go to a solicitor in the nearest town to deal with a range of challenges. That solicitor can access the service of the best-placed person within the Bar Council. That is an option for a person living outside the main urban bases. The difficulty in what the Minister suggests is that the best and brightest could be sucked into corporatised structures. For a State of 4.5 million people, I do not understand the requirement for this at all, although there are allegations of economies of scale.

There is also the issue of legal practitioners and indemnity. There is a need for clarity in this regard and if there is a multidisciplinary practice with a legal practitioner and others, the question of liability arises. In other jurisdictions difficulties arise when a range of people cover a multitude of bases. The Enron scandal was an example as people who were supposed to do audits were also involved in consultancy. I really do not know why there is a big drive towards this or why there is a demand. The phrase "one-stop shop" sounds good but it is a one-stop shop for big business and will not apply to Charlie Joe in Donegal, Mary in Galway or Mickey in Tralee who may have a complicated health, financial or family law issue. I must oppose this in its entirety as very little detailed research has been done. I know it is a compromise that clearly arises from the differences in Cabinet that there will be consultation. We can have regard to the concerns of the Law Society and the Bar Council, with an objective analysis of their opinion on the current state of play and what is proposed, and we would take the current state of play any day of the week.

We understood that one of the primary objectives of the Bill is to reduce costs for people. I have indicated to the Minister on numerous occasions that the mediation Bill later in the year will do more to reduce costs than this Bill. I do not know what is the public interest in moving forward with these multidisciplinary practices. I will speak in more detail on the concerns of relevant stakeholders as we move forward. It is not just the Bar Council that has concerns, as the Law Society has a range of opinions on indemnity, clarification of the types of practising solicitors and the background and the definition of partners. There is a range of recommendations that have been submitted to the Minister and this committee. The Free Legal Advice Centres, the North Side Community Law Centre and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions are among the stakeholders telling us we should oppose these multidisciplinary practices.

In a corporate structure, a barrister would become answerable to many others, including shareholders, other partners, boards of management, high-paying clients and so on, rather than giving regard to the best interest of clients, and courts will no longer be a priority. There is also a real risk that should such corporate structures be introduced, the market will substantially contract, allowing only the largest firms access to the best of the Bar, thereby substantially transforming the character of access to justice for all the citizens of the State. It will be similar to football leagues in that the biggest firms with the deepest pockets will hire the best players and charge fees out of the range of all but powerful big business interests, leaving the ordinary workers outgunned on every occasion. There will be reduced opportunities to devil, which is the term for barristers serving their time and moving up the experience ladder. There is a range of issues but that is the initial statement about the concerns. We can probe other issues as we go through the sections.