Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

Reducing costs and enhancing transparency are important and welcome reforms. However, the creation of additional quangos that may infringe upon the independence of the legal system is a dangerous development. An ever more complicated complaints system when a ready-made office, that being the legal services Ombudsman, already exists on the books to deal easily with complaints adds another unnecessary bureaucratic layer.

Fianna Fáil welcomes significant parts of the Bill including those that introduce greater transparency and will make it easier for young people to qualify as either barristers or solicitors, thus ending the monopoly the Law Society of Ireland and the King's Inns have in the training of both branches of their profession.

The introduction of greater transparency is a welcome move that will allow free information on costs that should help reduce costs and allow consumers to gauge value for money. However, there is a number of problems with these reforms and a series of measures are needed to strengthen these provisions.

The proposed Bill also gives rise to a number of areas of concern which yet again reveal that the Fine Gael-Labour coalition is performing more U-turns on its pre-election promises. This is particularly evident in the proposal by the Minister, Deputy Shatter, to establish two new quangos entitled the legal services regulatory authority and the legal practitioners disciplinary tribunal. That threatens competition and access for people to high quality legal services.

Fine Gael and Labour came to power promising they would cull quangos. Fine Gael pledged to abolish 145 quangos in its document, Reinventing Government. The programme for Government committed to reducing the number of State bodies. Notwithstanding that commitment, the Minister, Deputy Shatter, is proposing to establish two new quangos. First, the legal services regulatory authority will be required to regulate the entire legal profession. Such a quango will be both large and costly. To carry out the functions of the Law Society and Bar Council it must be heavily staffed. We should make no mistake that this quango will cost the State money. The Minister has indicated that it will be paid for by the legal professions. The experience of other quangos is that, ultimately, the cost will be passed on to the consumer.

Fine Gael and Labour are in denial and are misleading people by saying this quango will not cost the taxpayer money. It would be more appropriate if the Bar Council and the law society would carry out their regulatory functions and be supervised by an independent statutory authority. That would be less costly and more efficient. It is a system that is used in the United Kingdom and in other jurisdictions.

The second quango, the legal practitioners disciplinary tribunal, is a quasi-judicial body which will preside over alleged cases of misconduct referred to it by the legal services regulatory authority. Cases are brought to the tribunal having been referred to it by the complaints committee of the authority. Effectively, the tribunal and the authority complaints committee will replace the existing internal disciplinary procedures, namely, the Barristers' Professional Conduct Tribunal, the Professional Conduct Appeals Board and the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. The creation of the tribunal also renders obsolete the Legal Services Ombudsman Act 2009, which this party introduced, and having a single statutory independent body to deal with complaints. The Fianna Fáil Bill was similar to the UK model, which has been rejected by the Government in creating this legal services authority rather than an oversight body, as is the case in the UK.

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