Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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135. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the status of the work of the Legal Services Regulatory Authority. [21764/17]

Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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136. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the status of the implementation of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 and outstanding provisions yet to be implemented. [21765/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 135 and 136 together.

The setting-up of the Legal Services Regulatory Authority, whose establishment day I had set by Order for 1 October 2016, has been underway since July 2016. At that time, I commenced Parts 1 and 2 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 as necessary to get the new Authority underway, particularly in terms of its nomination and appointment with the necessary motions of approval of the Houses of the Oireachtas. As part of the commencement of Part 2 of the 2015 Act, the Law Society, the Bar Council and the Honorable Society of the King's Inns furnished the Legal Services Regulatory Authority with copies of their professional codes as required within one month of the Authority's establishment under section 23(6)(a). 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 (between solicitors and barristers or barristers and barristers - solicitors can already operate partnerships), Multi-Disciplinary Practices (where legal practitioners can provide their services together with other non-legal services providers) 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. It is is currently conducting a public recruitment campaign for a long-term Chief Executive. The Authority has met five times since its inaugural meeting on 26 October 2016 with its next such meeting set for 25 May 2017. Funding support of €1 million was provided to the new Authority by my Department in December 2016. This is being done on a strictly recoupable basis as the Authority will be self-funding by levy with a similar allocation available to the Authority under my Department's Vote for this year.

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 have been laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas. These reports, which were completed under very tight statutory deadlines, are historical as the first formal outputs of the Authority in the discharge of its legislative functions. They are also available along with minutes of meetings and other information on the web page of the new Regulatory Authority which is under development at www.LSRA.ie. 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 - these arise with regard to the holding of clients monies and to the direct provision of services to a client in relation to contentious matters. More recently, the Authority has submitted its first Annual Report which, under the relevant terms of the Act, covers its activities for the quarter since establishment on 1 October to the end of 2016 and this will soon be laid, as required, before each House of the Oireachtas.

Alongside these developments, the working focus right now is on the managed roll-out of the Authority's remaining functions with the matching development of its organisational capacities and office and staffing resources. This includes, under Part 10 of the 2015 Act, the introduction of a more transparent legal costs regime and the parallel transition, within the courts system, of the Office of the Taxing-Master to that of the Legal Costs Adjudicators; the establishment of a Roll of Practising Barristers under Part 9; the introduction of new regulations for the advertising of legal services under section 218 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 relating to public complaints, professional conduct and 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 come into substantive regulatory mode in these areas during the latter part of this year and early in 2018, the phased start-up of its various functions 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.