Previously, I wrote about the Legal Services Regulation Bill 2011. I mentioned 3 misgivings I had with the text of the Bill and wrote the Minister with these concerns. see http://outside-of-the-walls.blogspot.ie/2011/12/letter-to-sundry-tds-about-legal.html
Happily, he seems to have listened and the amendment list published today deals reasonably well with one of my misgivings and decisively with the other. see http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/bills/2011/5811/b5811d-dscn.pdf
Amendment 29 on this list deals with my main problem -the wording requiring the new Authority to merely keep legal education under review. Amendment 29 extends this to allow the Authority make proposals to the Minister also. While this is far more conservative than what I personally wanted to see, nevertheless it improves the bill considerably. It still falls short of what is in the explanatory memorandum and troika commitments: In particular, commitments to open up legal training to competition. However, it will create a foundation for such liberalisation at a later date, once the Authority is established.
Amendment 7 follows my advice for dispersing the power of appointing lay members to independent bodies seperate from the Govt. I think this is also an improvement.
Overall, I am quite happy with the list of amendments published. I think it will make the bill much better and addressess my 2 greatest concerns with it. These amendments deserve to be carried and the Bill to pass in its present form -however, I would still like to see a much more robust approach taken to the liberalisation of training places. An inexplicable monopoly.
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