Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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61. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if there is provision for independent oversight of members appointed to the Legal Services Regulatory Authority in the carrying out of their functions; and the details of the oversight mechanism, if it exists. [32503/16]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Legal Services Regulatory Authority which has eleven members, including a lay majority and a lay Chairperson, is publicly accountable as a body corporate for the performance of those functions which it is required to carry out under the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015.

Under section 21 of the Act the Authority is publicly accountable in terms of its making an annual report to the Minister and to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice and Equality which is also laid before each House of the Oireachtas. Under section 20 it must prepare three-yearly strategic plans while under section 28 it must submit annual estimates of income and expenditure. The Authority must also submit annual accounts for audit and scrutiny by the Comptroller and Auditor General and those accounts, along with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, must be laid before each House of the Oireachtas. The Legal Services Regulatory Authority will also be held accountable under the specific responsibilities which are conferred in this area by the 2015 Act on its Chief Executive. These arise under the respective provisions of sections 28, 29 and 30 to which I would refer the Deputy. In addition to keeping all proper and usual accounts of moneys received and spent by the Authority, the Chief Executive shall, when requested, attend before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice and Equality to give account for the general administration of the Authority. The Chief Executive will also give evidence, whenever required in writing, to the Public Accounts Committee on the regularity and propriety of transactions, the economy and sufficiency of the use of resources, the systems, procedures and practices employed for evaluating the effectiveness of operations or any other matter relating to these that may be raised in a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

I would also point out that section 11 of the 2015 Act sets out the circumstances in which a member of the Legal Services Regulatory Authority may be disqualified from office. Section 12 sets out a number of circumstances in which the Government may decide to remove a member of the Legal Services Regulatory Authority from office by reference to ill health, stated misbehaviour, conflict of interest or being otherwise unfit to hold the office or unable to discharge its functions.

The Legal Services Regulation Act of 2015, therefore, contains an array of oversight and accountability measures of application to public bodies. These apply to the work of the Legal Services Regulatory Authority as an independent statutory regulator including in terms of the functions of its members and of its chief executive. I might add that the Authority will also be subject to the extensive code of practice, under a range of different governance headings, for the Governance of State bodies which has most recently been updated in August of this year.