Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

To the best of my knowledge the NDFA uses outside legal advice. I do not know to what extent it uses the Office of the Chief State Solicitor but I know the NDFA uses outside legal advice because I get a monthly schedule of the projects in which it is involved. The legal work of Departments is traditionally done through the Office of the Chief State Solicitor. There is no ideological reason for not contracting out the work. We have contracted out work in specific cases where the workload involved was beyond the capacity of the Office of the Chief State Solicitor. That office also makes extensive use of legal counsel in dealing with day to day cases. In the case of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, more prosecution work is now outsourced to barristers and private practice than in most other common law jurisdictions. There has been a sea-change in that regard over the past few years. All of the advocacy work in contested jury trials is outsourced to the Bar. In other common law jurisdictions the tendency now is to make greater use of in-house lawyers. Local State solicitors are of course private practitioners who work on contract for the State rather than as State employees, but that issue is currently under discussion.

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