Colm Burke (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the Minister. This is my second time in 18 months to raise this matter on the Adjournment. I stand over what I said previously and nothing has occurred since. This is about the appointment of a third Taxing Master.

The current position is that if someone wins their High Court action their solicitor will want to get the costs taxed. If an agreement has been reached the matter comes before the Taxing Master in the High Court but there are only two Taxing Masters. The problem is that there is huge delay. I have read the reply the Minister gave to Deputy Michael McGrath and I am sorry to say that the information in that reply is incorrect. It is correct in that from the date a case is set down for taxation it takes ten weeks before one will get an initial hearing but the decisions being made are not made at the end of the ten weeks. I was involved in one case where after 12 months a decision still had not been made. I know of numerous solicitors who have furnished all the evidence, both from the defendants and the plaintiffs, and seven to eight months later a decision has not been made. While the reply given by the Courts Service is technically correct, what the Courts Service is not giving is details of decisions.

I will give the Minister the figures. In 2011, 1,820 summonses were issued for taxation and 796 certificates issued. In 2013, 1,350 summons were issued. The reason summons were not issued is because people are aware of the considerable delays and they are trying every other means to try to resolve the issues. In 2013, only 345 certificates were issued by the Taxing Masters. That figure has decreased by more than 50% in less than two years, not because the work is not being presented but because decisions are not being reached.

In fairness to the Taxing Masters I will not go into the reasons for the delays but the process has come to a standstill. I understand one legal practice has taken the matter before the High Court for it to rule on how it should be dealt with.

This matter will not go away, and the response given to Deputy McGrath is not an accurate picture of what has been happening on the ground. If one talks to a legal practitioner or legal costs accountants, who employ quite a number of people, they will say that many of them have had to let staff go because of delays in getting decisions. That indicates the seriousness of the situation. Small legal practices in rural areas might deal with two or three big cases in the year and they are waiting three years to get paid. We are talking not only about solicitors but barristers, engineers, quantity surveyors and medics, and none of them are getting paid. This matter cannot be left as it is and I will not accept the response given in last few days to Deputy Michael McGrath.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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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.

Colm Burke (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for his response. I have got the figures on the stamp duty collected for 2012. In order to take up one's certificate of taxation, one must pay stamp duty. The total stamp duty paid in 2012 for 367 certificates was €805,000. As I said earlier, the number of certificates issued in 2011 reduced from 796, therefore, all we needed to do to pay for a third Taxing Master was to issue an additional 200 certificates. The State is now losing money by not having a third person appointed. A total of €805,000 was brought in in 2012, when the number starts to decrease substantially. The new procedure about which the Minister spoke will not be in place until this time next year. In the meantime many people throughout the country will not get paid until certificates are issued, and that is taking eight to 12 months. I will raise this matter again with the Minister for Justice and Equality. The solution to this problem is to appoint a third Taxing Master for 12 months to deal with this issue. It will be cost neutral from the State's point of view; in fact, it will make more money for the State. I seriously ask that that be taken on board.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I assure the Senator that I will bring the points he has raised to the attention of the Minister for Justice and Equality, particularly the statistics and the point that the income to the State could be increased if a third person was appointed. The Minister is examining all these issues and I will ask her to revert to the Senator directly on the particular issues he raised.