Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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294. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the measures she is taking to address the fact that Ireland is ranked by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development as the eight most expensive country in which to enforce a business contract; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [43724/15]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Legal Services Regulation Bill, which is scheduled to complete its passage through the Houses of the Oireachtas this week, 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 an objective of the Action Plan for Jobs, the Medium Term Economic Strategy 2014-2020 and the National Reform Plan.

The Legal Services Regulation Act will constitute a key component of the Government's strategy to bring greater transparency to legal costs and to reduce their burden on consumers and enterprise - including by reference to the competitiveness indicators raised by the Deputy, which would appear to be those also cited by the National Competitiveness Council in its 2015 Report on the Costs of Doing Business in Ireland. That Report notes that despite reductions in legal costs during 2013, Ireland remains an expensive location to enforce a business contract (ranked 9th in the OECD, not 8th as the Deputy suggests) and is a place where it takes a significant amount of time to enforce a contract (the 6th longest in the OECD). The legal services data used for the Report is based on a group of 16 respondents to the relevant CSO survey and 96 separate price observations.

The more transparent legal costs regime being introduced by the Legal Services Regulation Bill, in tandem with the use of more efficient alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, is intended to bring about significant improvements in Ireland’s position in the medium term. 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 disclose the costs that are involved, or, where this is not known, 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 adjudication of disputed legal costs by the reformed and modernised Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicators, which is currently known as the Taxing-Master's Office. 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 shall be taken into account in the adjudication of disputed legal costs. The Bill also provides for the establishment of a publicly accessible Register of Determinations which will disclose the outcomes and reasons for decisions made by the Legal Costs Adjudicators.

The Bill will also introduce a system for processing complaints about excessive costs, which will be the subject of attempts, firstly, by the new Authority at informal resolution, but then escalating to formal resolution where alternative dispute resolution means do not succeed. This will be the first time that complaints about all legal practitioners will be dealt with by an independent statutory public authority.

I might add the Bill sets out a clear path to new Legal Partnerships involving barrister/barrister partnerships and barrister/solicitor partnerships, which will allow for such partnerships to open for business, in competition with the more traditional lawyer structures, by late next year. The new Legal Services Regulatory Authority is also tasked with carrying out public consultations and reporting to me as Minister with further legislative recommendations over its first four years in areas such as removing existing client money and direct access restrictions relating to barristers; examining entry and training requirements for the legal profession; unification of the two legal professions; and the opening of the market to multi-disciplinary practices.

Overall, 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. These combined measures will enable those availing of legal services, be they private consumers or enterprise, to identify costs more clearly, including in competition with other possible legal service providers.