Mr. Liam O'Daly:

Currently, the Government procurement office is doing work regarding procurement processes in respect of local authority work. The Chief State Solicitor might know a little bit more about this. If one includes that as regards the State, there is going to be a framework agreement and procurement processes will be designed around it as regards local authority legal work. Very soon - again through the Government procurement office - there will be consideration of the procurement processes that will have to be undertaken by centralised Government. I am sure the Government procurement agency has some sort of figures on which it is working from the point of view of introducing these sorts of framework agreements. Incidentally, the framework agreement that will be put in place for Government Departments only covers the procurement of solicitors' services. It does not cover counsel. The idea is that they want to look at the issue of Government Departments that are taking in quite a lot of legal advice from the private sector - mainly commercial-type solicitor firms - and how to bring the cost of that down. Now, in looking at these issues it is certainly our disposition that more money should be spent fortifying the Chief State Solicitor's office, centralising legal services and bringing that up to a certain level of expertise rather than paying a small number because that is all who seem to be getting the solicitor work, of solicitor firms doing work for Departments. In bringing forward these framework agreements, I take it that the Government procurement office has done the type of analysis the Chairman is talking about. It is taking a whole-of-view approach.