Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. We had some brief discussion on this matter this morning during the Order of Business. If we are being totally honest, the Bill that we see before the House now has changed from that presented by Deputy Shatter four years ago. Then it was like a two year old male tiger, full of teeth, steam and gusto and now we end up with a little lamb with little teeth that one would find in the mountains of West Cork. There has been a total change. I am a member of the Law Society and it appears to me that the two big legal professions have coerced the Government to water down this Bill from what it was originally supposed to be. I make that observation at the very outset.

There is no doubt that we need to have independent regulation. That is something I advocate. As Senator Barrett mentioned on the Order of Business this morning, it seems that the existing staff of both the Law Society and the Bar Council will be subsumed into the new authority. That creates a doubt in my mind about how independent the new authority will be.

The Minister mentioned the issue of cost. One of the catalysts of this legislation was the coming of the troika to this country which pointed a finger at the matter of legal costs. I wish to place on record the fact that approximately 25% of the solicitors in this country, while they do not have a monopoly, are in a very strong position. There are solicitors in Dublin charging the Government, Departments, and commercial people €455 per hour. In other places, such as Bantry, Castlebar, Castleblayney or any rural town in Ireland where there are solicitors, a solicitor would be very lucky to get €75 an hour. The huge costs charged by a small number of major companies are a problem. They advise the Government and NAMA. I say this as someone who practised in a small town and made a living there. A huge proportion of these costs revolves around ten or 15 big firms. I always make the point that there are qualified young solicitors and barristers who cannot even get onto the payroll because they cannot find jobs. The idea is that this Bill will resolve the matter of costs through regulation and the trust. It will not and cannot resolve the whole area of costs and transparency unless there is some sort of parity. If one seeks advice from a solicitor on a will, for example, in Castlemaine in Kerry or Tullamore, the charge is €100 or €150. There has to be some balance because the costs to solicitors are the same. The licence fee that I pay to the Law Society is no different than the fee paid by a principal in a main firm in Dublin that employs 100 solicitors. If we do not grasp the nettle that is the regulation of costs, this Bill will fail on many issues. I can tell the Minister that 75% of practising solicitors in Ireland would concur with what I am saying. Some of them are struggling to survive. They have mortgages like everyone else. Not long ago, I was driven into the city from the airport by a young taxi driver who is a qualified barrister but who had no work. If the perception in Europe is that we are all creaming it, they are wrong and are going down the wrong road.

We are on Committee Stage and I do not want to labour the point. I am concerned about the new regulatory authority. Is it another quango? Will it be efficient? One can say it is not relevant to this particular section. The troika said that Ireland should sort out its legal services - the Bar association and solicitors. If that is done and the same monopoly is retained in which 25% control the major income and major fee per hour and the other 75% suffer, we will not have solved the issue to which the troika referred. I am talking about solicitors in particular. I cannot say strongly enough that the version of the Bill introduced in the House four years ago is so different from that now before us that if a law student studied it, he or she would say it is completely new legislation. I have great respect for the Minister and I do not say this in a derogatory way towards her or her officials but perhaps they should have gone back to the drawing board, produced a new Bill with the changes incorporated in it and started afresh rather than moving from a big ship to a small boat. That is the impression I get. We are dealing with a totally different Bill. However it is dressed up, those are the facts. I put that on record.