Mr. Stuart Gilhooly:

As a practising solicitor, I can tell the Senator that there is not. The reality is that legal costs play a very small role in this whole process because it seems to be common case at this stage that only 10% of cases actually go to court; the rest of the time, as Mr. Murphy has said, one is dealing with situations in which the costs are being paid directly by the client, so it is effectively a zero-sum game. Bear in mind also, as the Bar said in its presentation, that the Legal Services Regulation Act is now in place. We are simply waiting for the commencement of the relevant section. Once the section has been commenced, we are looking at an entirely new cost regime. We are looking at a costs adjudicator regime which will be very different from the one which we have seen up to now. I expect that will make a difference. It is impossible to tell at this stage the extent of that difference but I am quite confident that it will make one. There are therefore measures in place to deal with legal costs and they have been recently passed by this very place.