Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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Question 179: To ask the Taoiseach in line with commitments given in the Programme for Government, if he will provide information on the number of barristers briefed and the number of briefs per barrister awarded by the Attorney General's office since 2011 as well as the number of those who applied to be briefed and were not selected, broken down by senior and junior counsel. [18143/12]

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Seventy nine Senior Counsel have been briefed in 334 cases since January 2011 to end March 2012 while 235 Junior Counsel have been briefed on 2,400 cases in the same period. It should be noted that both Senior and Junior Counsel may be engaged in the same case. The following table shows the breakdown of counsel briefed:

The Office of the Attorney General and the Chief State Solicitor's Office have put arrangements in place to increase the number of Junior and Senior Counsel briefed by the State pursuant to Section 7 of the Prosecution of Offences Act, 1974. These arrangements are designed to ensure an equitable distribution of State work to counsel and to avoid situations where a small number of counsel earn very large sums from the State. The arrangements are being monitored on a monthly basis by the Attorney General and the Chief State Solicitor.

The Offices operate a system of panels based on legal specialism. It is open to any counsel who wishes to do so to apply to be placed on each panel appropriate to their expertise and it is from such panels that nominations of counsel are then made. All members of the appropriate panel can be considered as the work arises. As such, counsel do not apply for any particular brief so it would not be correct to state that counsel applied and were not then selected.