Departmental Legal Costs

Tuesday, 19 November 2013

Questions (528)

Lucinda Creighton

Question:

528. Deputy Lucinda Creighton asked the Minister for Justice and Equality further to Parliamentary Question No. 327 of 12 of November 2013, the reason his Department’s computer records relating to legal fees do not allow his Department to disaggregate the expenditure between senior counsel and junior counsel when all other Departments were able to furnish this Deputy with the figures for senior counsel in the same time period requested; if he will now provide the cumulative amount paid by his Department to senior counsel each year since 2003 as requested; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49318/13]

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Written answers

Minister for Justice and Equality

I wish to inform the Deputy that in my previous reply I was referring to my Department's Financial Management System (FMS). My Department's FMS disaggregates information in a manner appropriate to the management of my Department's finances. The details requested by the Deputy are not at present captured in every case when processing payments to persons who happen to be senior counsels as it is not a necessary requirement to facilitate such payments.

As was pointed out in my earlier reply, in the majority of cases legal advice is provided for my Department by the Office of the Attorney General and/or the Office of the Chief State Solicitor and as such the costs incurred are borne by those Offices. The primary example of where costs are managed by my Department would be in the Criminal Legal Aid area. If it would be of use to the Deputy it may be possible to extract details for some of the more recent years of senior counsel expenditure in this specific area.

Such information would only provide a partial reflection of the senior counsel costs arising for my Department but as I have already indicated it is not possible to provide a more comprehensive picture without a disproportionate allocation of resources to extract the information.