NEW ARRANGEMENTS are being put in place to avoid the situation where a small number of barristers earn very large sums from State work, according to the Taoiseach.
He made the announcement in the course of a reply to a question in the Dáil, where he revealed that one senior counsel was briefed by the State in 35 cases between the beginning of January 2011 and the end of March 2011.
One junior counsel was briefed in 136 cases during that time. The next most briefed senior counsel received 18 briefs from the State, while the next two most used juniors were briefed in 103 and 97 cases respectively.
Mr Kenny give the figures in reply to a parliamentary question from Fine Gael TD Eoghan Murphy, who asked how the allocation of work accorded with commitments in the programme for government on the issue.
Mr Kenny said 79 senior counsel had been briefed in 334 cases, and 235 juniors briefed in 2,400 cases. In some instances senior and junior counsel were briefed in the same case.
However, the figures reveal that the work is distributed very unevenly. Fifty-six of the 79 senior counsel received fewer than four State briefs during the period in question, and 174 of the 235 junior counsel received between one and nine briefs.
Mr Kenny said the Office of the Attorney General and the Chief State Solicitor’s Office have put arrangements in place to increase the number of junior and senior counsel briefed by the State.
The arrangements are designed to ensure an equitable distribution of State work and avoid situations where a small number of counsel earn very large sums from the State.
He said the offices operated a system of panels based on legal specialism and it was open to any counsel who wished to do so to apply to be placed on the appropriate panel. The new arrangements were being monitored on a monthly basis, he said.