The need for the Minister for Justice and Equality to appoint an additional
taxing master in view of the current delays in having taxation of costs
heard before the two existing taxing masters.
Senator Colm Burke
Response by Minister of State Kathleen Lynch TD
On behalf of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence, I wish to
thank the Senator for raising the matter. The Minister appreciates that
people, especially legal practitioners, are interested in the matter of
taxation of costs and the efficiency of the system of taxation.
As the Senator may be aware, Taxing Masters are independent office holders
attached to the High Court. The positions of the Taxing Master and their
offices are currently governed by the Court Officers Act 1926 and the
Courts (Supplemental Provisions) Act 1961. As the Senator is aware there
are two Taxing Masters who perform functions of a judicial nature in
respect of legal costs with the aim of establishing a fair relationship
between services rendered and the cost of those services.
The Courts Service has informed the Minister that the current waiting time
for taxation of a bill is 10 weeks, down from 12 weeks earlier this year.
The Minister is also been informed that a number of measures have been
introduced in the Taxing Master’s office to tackle backlogs. These include
improved scheduling of cases. Practitioners have also been informed that
all requisite documentation is to be lodged at the commencement of the
taxation process. It has been necessary to inform parties that taxation
cannot be completed due to the requisite documentation either not being
lodged or where proofs are not in order.
The Minister is also informed that the senior Taxing Master has also
already indicated to practitioners that he will take any application for
urgent taxation and regularly does so. He has also indicated that
complaints regarding delay should be brought to his direct attention.
The Senator will also appreciate that the need to ensure that persons
appointed as Taxing Master have the requisite experience in practice can on
occasion give rise to some situations where recusal from a case may be
appropriate. However, the Minister has been informed that this issue is
being managed between the two Taxing Masters.
In relation to the modernisation of the current legal costs regime and of
the framework for the “taxation” or determination of disputed legal costs,
the Programme for Government 2011-2016 undertakes to “establish independent
regulation of the legal profession to improve access and competition, make
legal costs more transparent and ensure adequate procedures for addressing
consumer complaints”. These undertakings complement those structural
reforms in the EU/IMF/ECB Troika Programme of Financial Support for Ireland
aimed at removing restrictions to trade and competition in the provision of
legal services and at the reform of the legal costs regime. Effect is being
given to these structural reform commitments in the form of the extensive
provisions of the Legal Services Bill 2011 which remains a priority under
the Government Legislation Programme, has completed Second Stage in the
Dáil and is due to begin Committee Stage on 10th July.
The Bill makes extensive provision, particularly in Part 9, for a new and
enhanced legal costs regime that will bring greater transparency to how
legal costs are charged along with a better balance between the interests
of legal practitioners and those of their clients.
It is particularly relevant to this Motion that the Bill provides for a new
Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicator to deal with disputes about legal
costs – at present these are dealt with by the Office of the Taxing-Master.
The new Office, headed by a Chief Legal Costs Adjudicator, will modernise
the way disputed legal costs are adjudicated with greater transparency.
The Office will be empowered to prepare Legal Costs Guidelines. It will
establish and maintain a publicly accessible Register of Determinations
which will include the outcomes and reasons for its determinations about
disputed legal costs. It should be recalled that the two existing
Taxing-Masters have been appointed by public competition under the enhanced
qualification criteria of Part 14 of the Civil Law (Miscellaneous
Provisions) Act 2011 which was enacted to prepare the way for the legal
costs reforms contained in the Legal Services Regulation Bill. The Bill
also sets out, for the first time in legislation, a series of Legal Costs
Principles. These are contained in Schedule One and enumerate the various
matters that may be taken into account if disputed costs are submitted for
adjudication.
Clearly therefore, the Legal Services Regulation Bill, which will commence
Committee Stage on 10th July, is set to introduce a range of structural
reforms that will make legal costs far more amenable to public scrutiny and
competition and subject to more modern and business-like adjudication
procedures than they ever have been in the past. The Minister does not
propose appointing another Taxing-Master in these circumstances as the
necessary reforms are already underway and the matters raised by the
Senator can continue to be resolved as part of the managed transition to
the new legal costs architecture contained in the Legal Services Regulation
Bill - and as may be considered appropriate by the new Office of the Legal
Costs Adjudicator.
Concluding Statement
The Government is committed to introducing reform in the area of legal
costs and this includes taxation of costs. Since the Legal Services
Regulation Bill will provide for the establishment of an Office of Legal
Costs Adjudicator which will deal with disputes about legal costs and will
replace the existing regime it would not be prudent to consider appointing
extra taxing masters at this time. In addition, the measures which were
recently implemented by the Taxing Masters to address backlogs should be
allowed time to take effect and, as I have already mentioned, there is a
system in place to bring urgent applications to the attention of the Senior
Taxing Master.
I might also mention that the Courts Service has informed the Minister that
the total number of bills lodged in 2012 represented a 34% decrease on the
number lodged in 2011. In all the circumstances, the Minister intends to
keep the matter under review but, as already stated, he does not propose to
appoint a third taxing master at this time.