Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am taking this matter on behalf of the Minister for Justice and Equality who unfortunately cannot be here, and I apologise for keeping the Senator waiting. The Minister appreciates that people, especially legal practitioners, are very interested in the matter of taxation of costs and efficiency.

As the Senator is aware, there are two Taxing Masters who perform functions of a judicial nature in respect of legal costs. Their aim is to establish a fair relationship between services rendered and the cost of those services. The Taxing Masters are independent officeholders attached to the High Court. The positions are governed by the Court Officers Act 1926 and the Courts (Supplemental Provisions) Act 1961.

The Courts Service has informed the Minister for Justice and Equality that the current waiting time from lodgment of a new application to the first date on which it will be listed is ten to 11 weeks. The Courts Service also stated, however, that the volume of work being dealt with is such that delays can occur in delivery of considered rulings, particularly in the more difficult cases.

A number of measures have already been introduced to tackle the backlog. These include improved scheduling of cases. Practitioners have also been informed that all requisite documentation is to be lodged at the commencement of the taxation process. It has been necessary to inform parties that taxation cannot be completed due to the documents either not being lodged or where proofs are not in order.

The Minister was also advised that practitioners have been informed that any application for urgent taxation can be brought to the attention of the Taxing Masters' office, and this process has been availed of regularly. Complaints should be brought directly to the attention of the Taxing Masters' Office.

Regarding the modernisation of the current legal costs regime and of the framework for the "taxation" or determination of disputed legal costs, the programme for Government undertook to "establish independent regulation of the legal profession to improve access and competition, make legal costs more transparent and ensure adequate procedures for addressing consumer complaints". The Legal Services Regulation Bill 2011, which has completed Committee Stage in the Dáil and in respect of which the Minister expects Report Stage to be completed in the current session, provides for the establishment of a new office of the legal costs adjudicators to replace the Taxing Masters' office. The new office will modernise the way disputed legal costs are adjudicated upon, with greater transparency. The determinations of the adjudicators will be guided by legal costs principles. A publicly accessible register of determinations, which will include the outcomes and reasons for determinations about costs, will be established and maintained. The Minister is considering further amendments on the management and efficiency of the operation of the Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicator under the Bill.

It should be recalled also that the two existing Taxing Masters have been appointed by public competition under legislation enacted to prepare the way for the legal costs reforms contained in the Legal Services Regulation Bill. The Bill is set to introduce a range of structural reforms that will make legal costs far more amenable to public scrutiny and competition and subject to more modern and business-like adjudication. As the necessary reforms are already under way, the matters raised by the Senator can continue to be resolved as part of the managed transition and as may be considered appropriate by the new Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicator. That said, serious concerns about the effects of delays in processing of cases have been raised with the Minister and she is having the situation examined with a view to establishing whether any other short-term measures are necessary and possible.