Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This deals with the issue of professional indemnity insurance, PII, for legal practitioners. A definition of PII is inserted and there are two sections to clarify the issue of professional indemnity insurance for legal practitioners. It is proposed that section 38 is to be replaced by a new section 38, which is reworked in order to better clarify the obligation on solicitors and barristers to have adequate professional indemnity insurance, including when they are providing services through the new business models being created by the Bill, such as legal partnerships, multidisciplinary practices and limited liability partnerships. This is necessary for the consumer and in the interests of clients, they will not be permitted to practice unless insurance cover is in place. All legal practitioners will be under an obligation to comply with the relevant regulations and the authority is being given the power to approve any existing group schemes, as long as they are already compliant with regulations.

Section 39 sets out the regulatory authority's professional indemnity insurance regulation-making powers in addition to making new regulations, including where none exists, such as the case with the new business models. The authority will have the power to set monetary amounts regarding the minimum level of cover and maximum excess amount that the authority considers appropriate to each type of legal practice. The objectives of the regulations are set out and these include elements that are important to the consumer. They are to protect the client's money and interests, encouraging high standards at a reasonable cost, proper consideration of any different levels of risk that might apply to different types of legal practices and ensuring that adequate cover is in place in all cases. These provisions are similar to what was contained in the previous section 38 but they are more robust and detailed. In some ways, what we had was a more skeletal approach to the issues but as the Bill has developed, we have filled them out, as we have done with the inspection regime.

Senator Barrett's amendment suggests the use of the world "shall". That is part of the section being proposed. We are effectively dealing with the amendment in that way.