The procedures in place for the appointment of members of the Legal Services Regulatory Authority are laid out in Part 2 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 to which I would draw the Deputy's attention. This Part, comprising sections 7 to 36, deals with the establishment of the new Legal Services Regulatory Authority, its membership, appointment, functions, staffing and other matters including disqualification or removal from membership. The Authority comprises eleven members of whom a majority, including the Chairperson, are to be lay persons.
The selection process is intentionally built around a framework of ten prescribed nominating bodies set out in section 9 of the 2015 Act. This framework was introduced by the Government by way of ensuring the independence of the new Regulatory Authority in terms of both its appointment and its functions. It also seeks to represent a balance of interests, in the membership of the Authority, between legal practitioners and those clients who avail of their services.
The ten bodies concerned are, the Citizens Information Board; An tÚdaras um Ard-Oideachas; the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission; the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission; the Institute of Legal Costs Accountants; the Consumers Association of Ireland; The Bar Council; the Legal Aid Board; the Honorable Society of the King’s Inns and Law Society. The Law Society has two nominees reflecting the fact that solicitors outnumber barristers being regulated under the 2015 Act by five to one – upwards of 10,000 practising solicitors as compared to upwards of 2,000 practising barristers.
Each of the prescribed nominating bodies puts forward one primary and one substitute nominee for consideration for membership of the Regulatory Authority under the terms and criteria set out in the 2015 Act. This includes by reference to their relevant expertise as set out in section 9(3) and with regard to the objective of there being no fewer than four members who are women and four members who are men under section 9 (6). This is with the exception of the Law Society which, again because of the ratio of solicitors practising in the State which I have just mentioned, puts forward one nominee of each sex.
While members of the new Regulatory Authority are duly appointed by the Government under these procedures, under section 9 (2)(a) of the 2015 Act, a resolution approving such appointment has first to be passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas. Resolutions of both Houses approving members of the Authority were passed in July 2016 with resolutions concerning one remaining alternative nominee passed by the Houses last week. Once the required resolutions of approval have been passed the Government formally appoints the members of the Authority.
The ten prescribed nominating bodies, therefore, put forward their nominees under the procedures set out in Part 2 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015, as appropriate to their functions and objectives as may be set out, in each case, under legislation or under common law. It will, therefore, be for each of those bodies, in the first instance, to identify their nominees for membership of the new Regulatory Authority under their applicable internal governance procedures. It is, for example, for the Council of the Bar of Ireland, as a private body, to competently conduct the indoor management of the Council and to oversee the conduct of its own business in accordance with its own rules and procedures.
