Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I do not have a graph I can produce for the Deputy but I refer him to the initial report and the final report of the Competition Authority published towards the end of 2006 which regarded a range of difficulties within the legal professions as restrictive practices which unduly added to the legal costs for the consumers of the legal profession. I see the legislation to be published as being of substantial benefit to consumers in particular and I hope that when members of the legal profession, both solicitors and barristers, have had an opportunity to reflect on the detailed contents of the Bill they will see it is also modernising the structures through which legal services can be provided, bringing the legal professions out of the 19th into the 21st century and, in sweeping the cobwebs out of the legal corridors, is giving an opportunity to those who wish to be competitive and provide legal services to consumers to do so through new structures which will be to the benefit of both the legal profession and consumers and which I believe will reduce costs because of increased competitiveness.

The view of the troika is that, on average, legal costs in this jurisdiction are something in excess of 20% of what they would be in our neighbouring jurisdiction in England. I am not sure how they have calculated that sum because often it is difficult to do the comparisons.

The issue of legal costs is not simply about what lawyers charge. A range of reforms are necessary to incentivise people to use mediation instead of litigation in resolving disputes and to incentivise lawyers to encourage clients to resolve disputes by agreement where mediation is not necessary. There are substantial reforms needed within our court structures, which ensure that those who have to litigate areas of difficulty in their lives know lawyers are kept waiting around courts from one day to the next with court hearings lasting an hour or a couple of hours while other matters intervene. Court cases end up costing clients of the legal profession for three or four days in court when, if the courts were better organised, the matter might have been dealt with within a single day.

These are specific issues and I have urged the Courts Service to address them in the interests of consumers and also in the interest of the State, in the context of the substantial legal costs the State must meet in dealing with litigation taken against the State.

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