David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 provides for 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 2015 Act makes extensive provision in Part 10 for a new and enhanced legal costs regime which will bring greater transparency to how legal costs are charged, along with a better balance between the interests of legal practitioners and those of their clients. As part of this structural reform, under section 139(1) of the Act, the existing Office of the Taxing Master, which is an office of the High Court, is to become the Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicators.

The need to bring the Office of the Taxing Master to full working capacity is something of which the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, and the Department, are acutely aware. Officials are actively working with their colleagues in the Courts Service to deal with this in preparation for the changeover to the new office. The new office will come into effect with the commencement of the relevant provisions of Part 10 of the 2015 Act which they expect to happen later this year. The changeover to the new office, therefore, not only enables the introduction of key structural reforms for dealing with disputed legal costs but also enables them to reconfigure that function in a way which will better meet work demand. The Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality assures the Senator this detailed preparation is already being undertaken by a specifically tasked joint working group chaired at assistant secretary level by the Department of Justice and Equality and is working in close co-operation with its colleagues in the Courts Service. The working group, which has been meeting regularly, is mandated to map out and oversee the various practical steps to be taken to get the new Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicators up and running. This work is also intended to ensure the relevant new legal costs adjudication processes, documentation, rules of court and IT systems can be put in place in a legally robust manner. By the same token, it is intended that the resourcing of the new office will reflect its enhanced statutory mandate.

These preparations are being actively supported with the expertise and experienced inputs of the current Taxing Master whose term of office has recently been extended for transitional purposes under an enabling provision which the Minister introduced specifically for that purpose under the Courts Act 2016.That Act also included a number of other measures to facilitate the timely winding down of the existing caseload of referrals before the Office of the Taxing Master.

Senators will appreciate that the transition to the new legal costs adjudicators regime is a very fundamental reform, one that requires planning and management, with careful management of potential risks, in particular. Under this working strategy, it is also anticipated that a second taxing master will be appointed shortly whose services, with those of the existing Taxing Master, will be available to transition to the new legal costs adjudicators regime and deal effectively with the existing and ongoing Taxing Master caseload.