Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

It is a recent judgment, since the publication of the Bill. In fact, the Bill predates this Dáil and, therefore, the events to which I think Deputy Rabbitte is referring — the concerns about individual solicitors — post-dated the publication of the Bill.

In any case, I made the point to Deputy D'Arcy that the power to investigate apprentices is in the Solicitors (Amendment) Act 2002. That has already been an implicit power in the same way as regards fully qualified solicitors. The purpose is to put everything on a level playing field arising from the concern expressed in the judgment to which I referred.

These points were brought to the attention of the Department by the Law Society but it would be stretching it to say that it lobbied for this particular point. It simply brought the matter to our attention and it was discussed in the normal way.

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