Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

I have no difficulty with any of the aims of the Bill and welcome in particular the provisions relating to legal costs which are long overdue and to which Deputy Harrington, among others, referred. However, I am concerned that the Bill as currently drafted will decrease competition and increase costs in some respects for reasons I will outline. The system is far from perfect but in its current form the Bill could diminish much of what is good at the Bar.

There is no shortage of competition among the majority of practitioners at the Bar, and there is no shortage of competition for the services needed by the majority of litigants. Criminal legal aid fees have been cut by 35% in the past three years. The economic climate has ensured that solicitors shop around, and barristers have also cut their fees accordingly. Many practitioners have considerable difficulties getting paid at all.

Where costs are high it is in the provision of legal services to State agencies and civil litigation, and this has as much to do with the tendering process as anything else. For example, regarding the provision of legal services to NAMA, the tenders precluded firms with a turnover below €25 million from applying. Only the biggest firms in the country were eligible and therefore they were free to charge whatever they wanted. The Bill does not address that and I ask the Minister to address that in the debates on subsequent Stages of the Bill.

The Bill proposes to change radically the way barristers do their work, introducing for the first time partnership and multidisciplinary practices and allowing barristers employed by firms to practise in court. That is being done without any meaningful consultation with barristers themselves and has huge implications not just for the profession but for the public. Until now, irrespective of whether one was a multimillionaire or a single parent, one was entitled to choose one's own barrister and it did not matter whether one was living in Dublin 4 or the remotest part of Mayo or whether one's solicitor worked on his or her own, in a small country or city practice or in one of the top five firms. One was entitled to seek out and retain the best barrister working in that area. If barristers are employed in firms, that will no longer be the case. Access to barristers will be severely curtailed.

It stands to reason that if the top firms can retain the most experienced barristers specialising in a particular area, they may be able to charge accordingly and consumers will have no option but to pay more for the privilege. The proposal also has implications for small solicitors' practices that until now have had access to the top barristers in the country.

See this speech in context