Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if he will report on all reform measures that he has introduced to date in relation to the legal profession; if he is considering the introduction of any further reforms for this sector and specifically the creation of a single profession of lawyer thereby abolishing the archaic office of carrister; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5213/13]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The Programme of the Government for National Recovery 2011-2016 undertakes 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”. These undertakings complement those structural reforms in the EU/IMF Programme of Financial Support for Ireland aimed at removing restrictions to trade and competition relating to the legal professions and legal costs.

Effect is being given to these structural reform commitments in the form of the extensive provisions of the Legal Services Bill 2011 which was published, in keeping with the relevant time-line under the Troika Programme, in the last Quarter of 2011. The Bill, which remains a priority under the Government Legislation Programme, completed Second Stage in the Dáil in February 2012 and is currently awaiting Committee Stage - priority also had to be given to the enactment of the Personal Insolvency Bill by the end of last year as a competing Troika Programme objective. Detailed preparation of the Legal Services Regulation Bill is, therefore, ongoing at my Department in conjunction with the Offices of the Attorney General and of Parliamentary Counsel. As I have previously indicated, amendments to the Bill will be made available for consideration prior to the commencement of Committee Stage which is anticipated during this Session. The Bill has four main levers of modernisation and reform, namely, a new, independent, Legal Services Regulatory Authority with responsibility for oversight of both solicitors and barristers; an independent complaints system to deal with public complaints including those relating to professional misconduct. There will also be an independent Legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Tribunal to deal with both legal professions; an Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicator that will assume the role of the existing Taxing-Master. The new Office, headed by a Chief Legal Costs Adjudicator, will modernise the way disputed legal costs are adjudicated and two new Taxing-Masters have already been appointed in anticipation of this reform. Determinations of costs made by the Adjudicator will be made public and the Adjudicator may also publish legal costs guidelines. Separately, the Bill sets out, for the first time in legislation, a set of Legal Costs Principles. It also imposes greater obligations on legal practitioners to disclose the actual or potential costs of legal proceedings to their clients; a framework for Alternative Business Models. The Bill facilitates new forms of legal services provision that take account of the emergent new business models in other common law jurisdictions and the huge advances made in business technology. These new or "alternative" business structures will be optional alongside current forms of practise and their availability will address a growing competitive disadvantage for our legal services sector.

In relation to the specific point raised by the Deputy about a single legal profession, Section 30 of the Legal Services Regulation Bill 2011 provides for a report and recommendations to be prepared by the new Legal Services Regulatory Authority, within two years of its establishment, on whether the professions of barrister and solicitor in the State should be unified. That Section of the Bill sets out, in some detail, how the relevant recommendations should be made having regard, among other things, to the public interest, the need for competition, the interest of consumers, the proper administration of justice and other matters as may be considered appropriate.