Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)
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278. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the position regarding the potential transfer of staff from the complaints section of the Law Society to the new complaints section of the legal services; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45069/14]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Legal Services Regulation Bill, which has completed both Second and Committee Stages in the Dáil, commenced Dáil Report Stage on 11th July 2014 which is due to resume in the coming weeks. It is intended that the Bill be enacted so that the new Legal Services Regulatory Authority come into operation during the first half of 2015. In this context, I am very much aware of the ongoing concerns being expressed about the implications of the enactment of the new Legal Services Regulation Bill and its new independent complaints regime for the existing staff of the legal professional bodies who deal at the moment with complaints about legal practitioners. I am also aware of the ongoing representations on the matter which continue to be received from the Law Society and the Bar Council, from concerned members of their staff and from trade union representatives. A key challenge in finding a workable resolution to these matters will be that of ensuring that the new regulatory regime will have appropriately skilled staff to effectively, and independently, deliver a new complaints and disciplinary regime for legal practitioners upon the Authority's establishment.

For example, it is fundamental that the new Legal Services Regulatory Authority, to be established under the Legal Services Regulation Bill 2011, be independent of the legal professions and of the Government in the performance of its functions. This will include its implementation of new and independent procedures relating to allegations of professional misconduct by either solicitors or barristers. Members of the public will no longer go to the Law Society or to the Bar Council with their complaints in the first instance, as happens at the moment, but will instead make them through the Legal Services Regulatory Authority. Such complaints will be dealt with under the auspices of the new Regulatory Authority's Complaints Committee and supported, where appropriate, by the work of the new and independent Legal Practitioners' Disciplinary Tribunal. The independence of the new Regulatory Authority and of its attendant complaints regime is, therefore, fundamental to their success and to the avoidance of any public perception that complaints about lawyers are being dealt with by lawyers or by their representative bodies.

It is also desirable that the independence of the new regulatory regime be reflected in the relevant recruitment and appointment processes for staff of the new Authority and it is considered that such appointments should be better made by the Authority itself under open and public competition. Under this scenario, it should be open to existing staff of the legal professional bodies - who would obviously possess the relevant skills and experience - to apply for those positions advertised by the new Legal Services Regulatory Authority, which would then fill them independently.

At the same time, it is to be acknowledged that the proposed reforms to the legal professional conduct regime will have negative implications for a number of existing and appropriately skilled staff who currently deal with public complaints made through the legal professional bodies. I am also conscious of the support given by Deputies, from across the Parties, to finding a workable solution which can reconcile the competing human resource and policy considerations involved, during their detailed discussion of these specific concerns during Dáil Committee Stage of the Bill. I am, therefore, taking account of all of the concerns that are now in play as part of the ongoing consideration of the human and other resource aspects of the establishment of the new Legal Services Regulatory Authority and of the Legal Practitioners' Disciplinary Tribunal. The Deputy will also wish to note that these are matters which are not solely within my own purview but continue to be negotiated between my Department and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform which has overall responsibility for policy in these areas.