Mr. Ken Murphy:

I would like to respond to the queries raised by the Senators and Deputies opposite and I will then invite my colleague, Mr. Ó Culáin, to reply to the very interesting question raised by the Chairman, because it is Mr. Ó Culáin, rather than me personally, whose is regularly in Brussels and attending the meetings of the representative of the Bars and law societies of Europe.

Responding to Deputy Durkan's question on the issue of practice in the UK and Ireland, as both are common law jurisdictions and so close in history and in legal experience, with such similarity in law - notwithstanding some degree of divergence - where the EU itself has been a basis for consolidating the similarity of law between the two jurisdictions, there is a very powerful connection. On the capacity question, we have had a few London-based or headquartered international law firms open offices in Dublin in the wake of Brexit. Many Irish firms have offices in London. Cross-frontier work will not be a difficulty. On this day last week, I was in London in the Law Society of England and Wales. Our relations with the Law Society of England and Wales are very close and Brexit is a matter of great and equal regret at senior political level, with a small "p", within both of these law societies. We view it as something to be put no further than to be deeply regretted but we have to move on from that. There is no difficulty in the continued collaboration between the legal professional bodies on either side of the Irish Sea.

On the issue of legal costs, as the Deputy might expect, I have an answer and am quite prepared to give it but I do not believe the Chairman will allow the amount of time required to fully explain the basis of that. Legal costs in individual matters, however, are a matter for negotiation and agreement between clients and their solicitors in the context of a highly competitive market for legal services in Ireland. There are 2,400 individual practices, all in competition with each other, and the legal costs reflect the market for legal services.

On litigation matters, I acknowledge it was one of the issues on the troika's agenda, not at the top, and in implementation of legislation agreed, a number of measures have been put in place now by the Oireachtas under the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015, which are being worked through in that regard. They will have the effect they will have. I am quite happy to talk about legal costs when we have more time to do that.

On Deputy Haughey's particular question on the Good Friday Agreement and the closeness of the relationship between the Law Society of Ireland and the Law Society of Northern Ireland, I am heavily involved in the International Bar Association and am a senior officer in the world association of legal professional bodies. I am not aware of any two neighbouring jurisdictions where the legal bodies are as close as they are between the Law Society of Northern Ireland and of Ireland. For historical reasons, five representatives of the Law Society of Northern Ireland sit as full council members of the Law Society of Ireland, which is a pre-partition hangover. We have the very closest and warmest of relations. We are all conscious of the consequences of Brexit for the Good Friday Agreement and hopeful that they will not be as bad as some of the darker predictions would have it. We are not in control of that.

I mentioned that there are Irish law firms which have offices in London, New York and California, and so on.

There are a number of Dublin-based law firms that also have offices in Belfast and there are one or two Belfast law firms that have offices in Dublin. There is a very fruitful, co-operative and positive relationship.

I thank Senator Leyden for his compliments on the work Cormac Ó Culáin has done. I think Cormac had a very good teacher before he joined the Law Society of Ireland in terms of how to lobby.

If I was to leave one message, it would be about what this committee could do to encourage and promote Ireland as a centre for international dispute resolution. If Ireland became a centre for international dispute resolution, it could have real and positive benefits that could trickle down into the economy as a whole. In the future, it would have advantages, in terms of common law and EU membership, over England, which it does not have now. Government is aware of our view that there needs to be investment in the courts system. We need to invest in the commercial court and in the courts generally. Unfortunately when the economic crisis hit, investment in the courts and Government funding of the courts dropped considerably, by up to 40% according to some estimates. Therefore investment is required in technology in the courts, in the number of chambers, in the number of judges and in the staff support needed to hold Ireland out as a credible alternative to London. We are encouraging everybody, professional politicians everywhere, to see the value of that and possibly participate in supporting it, as we think should happen.

I would like to bring in Mr. Ó Culáin with his particular experience of working within the CCBE to answer questions.