Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail)
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263. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the actions she will take to reduce legal costs here. [41133/14]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Legal Services Regulation Bill 2011, which has commenced Report Stage in the Dáil, gives legislative expression to the commitment in the Programme for Government to "establish independent regulation of the legal professions to improve access and competition, make legal costs more transparent and ensure adequate procedures for addressing consumer complaints".Having been a sectoral objective under the EU/IMF/ECB Troika Programme, the Bill is now the subject of a Country Specific Recommendation under the EU Semester Process as well as being an objective of the Action Plan for Jobs,the Medium Term Economic Strategy 2014-2020 and the National Reform Plan. The Bill is, therefore, a key component of the Government's strategy to bring greater transparency to legal costs and to reduce their burden on consumers and enterprise.

The Bill makes extensive provision, in Part 10, for a new and enhanced legal costs regime that will bring greater transparency to how legal costs are charged by legal practitioners, along with a better balance between the interests of legal practitioners and those of their clients. Legal practitioners, whether solicitors or barristers, will be obliged to provide more detailed information about legal costs from the outset of their dealings with clients. This will be in the form of a Notice written in clear language which must be provided when a legal practitioner takes instructions. Among other things, the Notice must, as set out in section 117 of the Bill, disclose the costs that are involved, or, where this is not reasonably practicable, the basis upon which such costs are to be calculated. A cooling-off period is to be allowed for the consideration of costs by the client. When there are any significant developments in a case which give rise to further costs, the Bill provides that a client must be duly updated and given the option of whether or not to proceed with the case in question. In addition, the Bill sets out that it will not be permissible for legal practitioners to set fees as a specified percentage or proportion of damages payable to a client from contentious business and that it will no longer be permissible for barristers to charge junior counsel fees as a specified percentage or proportion of Senior Counsel fees.

An aggrieved client also has the option of applying for the taxation of disputed legal costs by the Office of the Taxing-Master. Under the Legal Services Regulation Bill the current functions of the Taxing-Master will be taken over by the new Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicator. The Bill sets out, for the first time in legislation, a series of Legal Costs Principles. These are contained in Schedule One and enumerate the various matters that may be taken into account in the adjudication of disputed legal costs. The Bill also provides for the establishment of a public Register of Determinations which will disclose the outcomes and reasons for decisions made by the Legal Costs Adjudicator.

In addition, the Bill seeks to achieve greater flexibility in the legal-services market, more competition and improved access to justice and will pave the way for the introduction of new business structures for legal practitioners which will enable cooperation across a range of legal and other professions so that knowledge and expertise can be joined to meet the needs of consumers in a more modern and cost-effective way.

The various new legal cost transparency measures that I have set out will apply to barristers as well as to solicitors and will enable those availing of legal services to identify costs and their basis more clearly, including by way of comparison with other possible legal service providers and in relation to any potential award. I would expect that, along with those other cost reduction measures that have been introduced by the Government in the procurement of legal services by State Bodies, the new legal costs regime and new legal business models will help reduce such costs and their burden on clients. These changes, along with other measures being introduced in the Legal Services Regulation Bill, will better balance the interests of consumers and those of legal practitioners thereby supporting greater competition and choice in the provision of legal services in the State.