Legal Services Regulation Bill

The bill is available here.

9 replies on “Legal Services Regulation Bill”

Though the explanatory Memo suggests that section 9 opens up legal education services to new operators, an inspection of the actual text of section 9 does not seem to support this.

Off-topic for which I apologise but does the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (prop: John McHale) have a website or forum on which it publishes reports. Apparently it has published something which recommends a €4bn adjustment in 2012 rather than the €3.6bn contained in the original MoU.

@grumpy

PR Guy is too busy to talk to McH at the moment as there’s a big co-ordinated response coming from the banks about forced recap and being asked to swallow PSI on Greece. Working like a dog for the next couple of weeks 🙁

@ Jagdip Singh

Yes, indeed.

‘Irish Times’ report here:

‘Harsher budget in prospect – Noonan’

Quote:

“The council’s proposal for budget cuts of €4 billion echo recent recommendations from both the Central Bank and the Economic and Social Research Institute. In its most recent Quarterly Economic Commentary, the institute urged the Government to cut its deficit more rapidly than planned, starting with a budget adjustment in 2012 of up to €4 billion. The Central Bank, in its quarterly update, repeated its view there were advantages to implementing a budget adjustment of more than €3.6 billion.”

The wagons are being circled.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/1013/breaking2.html

I must say I had a good laugh with the “Ireland Corporation Tax Regime: the International Dimension”. I suppose it was not intended as a comical piece ,but it is pretty good .It could have other alternative titles like: “How to pick your neighbors pockets in five easy lessons”, or “Talleyrand and Metternich reincarnated as little green elves”.
As an exposé of immorality in international relations it is hard to beat. I hope it will be translated in all the European languages and be made widely available on both sides of the Atlantic before the Irish Corporate tax is again discussed, which should be soon.

The Bill has nothing to say about competition. The State is the biggest consumer of legal services, the bulk of which is procured without competitive process, contrary to Department of Finance guidelines. This link http://debates.oireachtas.ie/ACC/2010/03/25/00004.asp#N175 to the PAC in March 2010 lays bare the institutionalised cronyism that squirms in the sweaty bed where government and the Law Library copulate. It is interesting to see that those being questioned seem genuinely puzzled and shocked at the notion that barristers should compete for state business on the same basis as all others – price and quality of service. Seems competition in this country is only for taxi drivers. Competition for these services could be introduced without any legislation. This looks like a “be seen to be doing something” smokescreen to divert attention away from the anti-competitive status quo.

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