Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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89. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality when the Legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Tribunal, provided for in the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015, will be established; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18506/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Legal Practitioners' Disciplinary Tribunal, to which the Deputy has referred, represents a key component of the new professional conduct and disciplinary regime that will apply to both solicitors and barristers upon the commencement of Part 6 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015. The Disciplinary Tribunal, whose members will be appointed by the President of the High Court on the nomination of the Minister for Justice and Equality, will have thirty-three members. One of those nominated will also be appointed Chairperson of the Tribunal by the President of the High Court. Its membership under section 75 of the 2015 Act will include at least six members from each of the two legal professions and a lay majority. The Tribunal will sit in uneven divisions of at least three members with each division to be chaired by a lay member. The Tribunal will be empowered to make its own regulations under section 79 of the 2015 Act in relation to the making of applications to it and the conduct of its proceedings. Section 83 of the 2015 Act also sets out how, and by whom, findings of the Disciplinary Tribunal may be appealed to the High Court. The Tribunal will, over time, replace both the existing Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal and Barristers' Professional Conduct Tribunal who will wind-down their existing caseloads.

However, the functioning of the Legal Practitioners' Disciplinary Tribunal is also contingent on the related public complaints and misconduct provisions also found in Part 6 of the 2015 Act and which will have to be brought into operation at the same time. These are the procedures through which complaints about alleged professional misconduct by solicitors or barristers will be received, given preliminary assessment and processed including, as may be considered appropriate, by their referral for determination by the Legal Practitioners' Disciplinary Tribunal. Once these new procedures are commenced, all complaints by members of the public relating to alleged misconduct by barristers or solicitors, including those that may end up before the Disciplinary Tribunal, will be made initially through the Legal Services Regulatory Authority and its Complaints Committee rather than through the legal professional bodies or directly to a Tribunal as happens at present.

In processing these complaints the Regulatory Authority will, therefore, also have to appoint the Complaints Committee. This Committee, which will have 27 members, will sit in divisional committees of three or five members, each with a lay Chair, to consider complaints within its remit. It will be appointed under the specified criteria of section 69 of the 2015 Act. It should also be noted that under section 55 of the Act the Legal Services Regulatory Authority can make regulations regarding the making of complaints to it and the proceedings to be followed by it and the Complaints Committee in investigating complaints. Under section 67 the Regulatory Authority will also issue guidelines for the possible alternative resolution of complaints by mediation or informal means. Extensive preparations have to be made by the Authority, therefore, by way of ensuring that the new public complaints and disciplinary architecture of the 2015 Act are set-up with the required membership, supporting staff, regulations and expertise in place to function in a legally robust manner upon commencement of the provisions concerned.

The setting-up of the Legal Services Regulatory Authority, whose establishment day was set by Order of the Tánaiste for 1 October 2016, has been underway since July 2016 when Parts 1 and 2 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 were commenced as necessary to get the new Authority underway, particularly in terms of its nomination and appointment. In December 2016 sections 118 to 120 of the 2015 Act were commenced to enable the conduct of public consultations and reports by the new Regulatory Authority within the statutory periods concerned. These relate to Legal Partnerships, Multi-Disciplinary Practices and certain restrictions on the work of barristers. The Authority, for which initial office accommodation has been provided by my Department along with the secondment of an officer at Assistant Principal level, also appointed an Interim Chief Executive on 1 January 2016 and has just last week publicly advertised for the recruitment of a long-term Chief Executive. On 31 March 2016, the Regulatory Authority presented respective reports under sections 118 and 119 to me as Minister for Justice and Equality and these will soon be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas in the required manner. On 6 April 2016 the Authority commenced its public consultations process under section 120 of the Act about certain restrictions on the work of barristers.

Alongside these developments, the working focus right now is on the managed roll-out of the Authority's remaining functions. Current areas of focus include the introduction of a more transparent legal costs regime and the parallel transition of the Office of the Taxing-Master to that of the Legal Costs Adjudicators under Part 10 of the 2015 Act; the establishment of a Roll of Practising Barristers under Part 9; and the separate introduction by my Department of Pre-Action Protocols in medical negligence cases under Part 15. Following these steps the key structural reforms of Part 6 of the Act which the Deputy has raised, including the appointment of the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal, will be commenced. The Chairperson and members of the Legal Services Regulatory Authority, its Interim Chief Executive and my Department are working closely to ensure that we can successfully coordinate the identification of the necessary steps and commencements by the Department, and the delivery, by the Authority as the new independent statutory regulator, of the various remaining provisions concerned. While it remains the intention that the Legal Services Regulatory Authority will be in substantive regulatory mode later this year, the phased start-up of its various functions along the lines expressed will need careful project management and the identification over coming weeks, and in conjunction with the Authority, of more specific delivery dates for the respective functions involved.