Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald has said she is “optimising” the long-delayed draft law to overhaul the legal sector and plans to publish a final version next month.
Speaking at the Law Society yesterday, Ms Fitzgerald said she was in ongoing discussions with lawyers’ groups on the legislation with a view to “avoiding any unintended consequences and outcomes” and “optimising the Bill, its benefits and its impacts on legal practitioner and client alike”.
With the Legal Services Regulation Bill due to go to report stage in the Dáil on July 17th, attention is focusing on whether Ms Fitzgerald will make any significant changes to the legislation first published by her predecessor, Alan Shatter, in October 2011.
The Government has come under pressure from the European Commission to enact the stalled Bill, parts of which are opposed by members of the legal profession.
‘One-stop shops’
The Bar Council, which represents barristers, is opposed to a provision that allows for solicitors, barristers and other professionals to set up “one-stop shops”.
Yesterday, Ms Fitzgerald said the Bill would modernise legal costs and legal services while creating an independent conduct regime for the profession.
“At the same time, I recognise the need to maintain the integrity and high standards of the legal professions in the introduction of any new measures under the Bill,” she added.
At the same event, Law Society president John Shaw queried whether there could be meaningful discussion on the Bill given that it was going to report stage on the eve of the Oireachtas summer break.
“It would be most unacceptable to us . . . if the Bill is to be guillotined through the Dáil on the last day of its sitting, where it will receive little or no proper consideration,” he said.
Mr Shaw criticised plans to close suburban district courts in Balbriggan, Tallaght, Swords and Dún Laoghaire.
