Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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That is covered in the Law Society’s amendment 2.29. It is an interesting issue on which I reflected following receipt of the recommendations. It seems on the surface an attractive issue but it might not be entirely so.

I will refer to my area of legal practice to which I do not anticipate I will return, so I have no particular vested interest in the outcome of the issue in the context of the legislation. If one takes a family law practice, I could well see a solicitor’s firm practising in family law, interested in dispute resolution dealing with people with very difficult parentage disputes over children with regard to custody and access issues or relationship issues, deciding that it would be a good idea for someone to create a family law practice in which one had two well-qualified family counsellors, a family mediator who might help mediate disputes in order that people would not have to go to court, and a number of lawyers. The practice might equally decide to bring in a pension expert to provide advice.

I am speculating. In the context of people dealing with family counselling, I am not sure there is an overall professional organisation that provides a disciplinary oversight of family counsellors. One of the issues is whether an individual is properly qualified and experienced. There is not a qualification, as one would have in the accountancy profession. I have some concerns about the idea that one would restrict it in the manner suggested. I can see the attraction of the approach in the context of disciplinary matters but I must be careful as we think this through that we do not create other difficulties.

In the mediation area, Members might be familiar with the heads of the mediation Bill we published. Further work is being done on that. There is no overall national body, for example, that is engaged in regulatory oversight of mediators. There are different types of commercial mediation groups which teach mediation to people from different walks of life. I would have thought, for example, that if one takes a commercial multidisciplinary lawyers' practice, one would have a number of lawyers who have become either arbitrators or mediators but one also has non-lawyers who become arbitrators and mediators. The Bar has an organisation of joint barristers and arbitrators to provide alternative dispute resolution measures. One could ask whether in the absence of an overarching regulatory body for mediators one would exclude a mediator from being part of a multidisciplinary practice.

The situation is perhaps more complex than the Law Society perceived it. I can well understand why it made that proposal in a regulatory framework context. In some areas it is important that one has that oversight. We are reflecting on the issue. Whether it is the family law area or the commercial law area I do not want to exclude the possibility of engagement by other professionals whose skills are complementary to the service provided and who could provide those skills to the benefit of the public within an overall one-stop shop framework. It seems there are well-qualified, well-trained individuals working in the community who could be excluded from being part of a multidisciplinary practice on the basis of what the Law Society has proposed.