Ms Alison McIntyre:

Certainly. The only thing to add to what Dr. Doherty has said is that under the Act, our role is in the implementation of legal partnerships. In performing that role, we are trying to balance consumer protection and the provision of legal services to a high standard. One of our objectives under the Act is to promote competition in the sector. Basically, our role is implementation. That decision was made and is catered for within the Act.

On the specific matter the Leas-Chathaoirleach mentioned with regard to what would happen if a client goes to a solicitor who is in partnership with a particular barrister and would this automatically mean that it is the barrister within the partnership who is retained, as Dr. Doherty said in response to another question, we have draft regulations that are going before the authority, which is our board, on Thursday. In those draft regulations as they currently stand, there is a provision that there is an obligation on the solicitor in that circumstance to advise the client that they have the option to seek to refer the matter or to seek to retain the services of counsel outside of the legal partnership.

More generally, we are very much aware of the necessity for the benefit of everybody having access to good legal representation. We have put into the draft regulations reciprocal obligations on barristers and solicitors if it is a barrister and solicitor partnership but neither would interfere with the professional obligations of the other in the context of the legal partnership. This is just to give the context for that. As Dr. Doherty has already outlined, as part of the introduction of legal partnerships, we are also introducing a code of practice for practising barristers. These will all be introduced as a suite through the regulations and a code, which will be made at the same time.