THE MINISTER for Justice has accused the Bar Council of “briefing against the State” in relation to the forthcoming Legal Services Bill.
Alan Shatter was referring to a meeting between representatives of the Bar Council and of the EU and IMF last Monday, on the eve of his announcement of measures to be contained in the Bill.
“It is extraordinary that the Bar Council should put itself in a position where it is briefing against the State and seems intent on doing damage to the credibility of the State with the EU, IMF and ECB in circumstances where the State is fully compliant with the agreements it concluded, and in circumstances in which the State remains dependent for public services on funding from those bodies,” Mr Shatter told The Irish Times.
He said a report on the meeting between the Bar Council and the EU-IMF representatives had been brought to his attention, and he said it seemed to be “an unprecedented and ill-judged intervention by people who should know better”.
At the meeting the Bar Council told EU and IMF representatives it was concerned that several provisions of the proposed Bill were likely to go beyond what was recommended by the Competition Authority and as such were not required under the memorandum of understanding between Ireland and the troika.
Senior counsel David Barniville, David Dodd and Jerry Carroll, Bar Council director, met Nigel Nagarajan, the commission representative in Ireland, and Peter Breuer from the IMF to outline their concerns.
According to notes of the meeting seen by The Irish Times, Mr Barniville told the two men that the proposed Bill, which they had not yet seen, “could go much further than was required under the memorandum of understanding and could be contrary to competition and the public interest.”
The delegation passed on to the commission and IMF copies of submissions made to the Minister for Justice, and its submission to the Competition Authority in 2006.
The officials from the EU and IMF referred to the three-strand focus of the memorandum of understanding: fiscal, financial and structural. They said they were primarily dealing with the first two, and the action relating to the legal profession came under the structural heading.
They also stressed that what was required under the memorandum was a minimum, and anything over and above that was a matter for the State. They added they would be interested if measures taken by the State on foot of the memorandum were in fact anti-competitive or unduly restricted competition.
Mr Shatter added: “It is noteworthy, but not surprising, that . . . the representatives of the EU-IMF emphasised that any reform the Government intended to introduce that went beyond their requirements is essentially a matter for the State and that the State is free to impose any reforms it deems necessary in the public interest.”