The Attorney General has been criticised by the Law Society for excluding solicitors from positions as legal assistants in his office.
The director-general of the Law Society, Mr Ken Murphy, said in a strongly-worded letter to Mr McDowell that recent newspaper advertisements stipulating that only barristers need apply were "absurd and utterly indefensible".
"To exclude all solicitors, regardless of their experience or ability, from consideration for these appointments is to exclude more than 80 per cent of the practising lawyers in the State. It constitutes discrimination without objective justification. It is a restrictive practice which is fundamentally contrary to the public interest", he stated in the letter.
There was no comment on the letter from the Attorney General's office yesterday.
Mr Murphy said that the Law Society believed every position for a lawyer in the public service should be open to all lawyers and should be filled by the best candidate, regardless of whether that candidate was a solicitor or a barrister.