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

What I had said on that was that because of the different ways in which solicitors and barristers have done their business up to now, I had to make such provision. Senator O'Donovan, whose point I understand, should note this is why I have had to make an amendment on Report Stage. We had thought we would be in a position to deal with the two professions in a similar way but it was felt, on having sought further legal advice, that I should insert a new section allowing, at the transitional stage, for different means of handling of both. The solicitors previously disbarred members of their profession under statute while the barristers did not. As I stated when going into the details, since disbarment of barristers will have been carried out informally in-house before the commencement of this Act, we will not really have a reference point regarding how cases will have been dealt with.The recommendation is that before the commencement of this new Act for a definition of barristers’ misconduct - we have no reference point for that definition - the authority thus cannot deal with complaints about barristers acts or omissions which occurred before commencement of the new Act. Such complaints will have to continue to be handled under the existing Bar Council regime. This refers to old complaints but as soon as they have been dealt with, any new complaints coming in can then be dealt with under the new sections that deal with complaints and will be dealt with by the Legal Services Regulation Authority, LRSA, in the way I have outlined.