REPRESENTATIVES OF the medical and legal professions have disputed claims by Minister for Enterprise Batt O’Keeffe that fees in their sectors are too high.
Mr O’Keeffe has begun a series of meetings with different professional bodies to make a case for reducing fees and costs in order to boost national competitiveness.
Last month the Minister met with the Law Society and the Bar Council and plans to meet representative bodies for doctors and other professions in the autumn.
Mr O’Keeffe claims that reductions in professional fees have been too small compared to other sectors, and in some cases, there have been increases. He has argued that this has hindered competitiveness at a critical time.
The Minister has based his criticisms on a recent Forfás report which suggested that legal costs to business were 18.5 per cent higher in 2009 than they were in 2006 and on a survey by the National Consumer Agency which found the average price for a visit to a general practitioner was €51.
The Law Society has said that the conclusion of the Forfás report was “completely unreliable”.
While both the legal and medical professions have had their fees for work on behalf of the State cut by 8 per cent, the Minister argued that private fees have not reduced.
“It’s important that the legal profession was aware of the difficulties for business and that everybody is now required to play a role,” he said, adding that figures also indicated some GPs had increased their fees.
“Everybody’s pay and social welfare is being affected and these people in the professional sectors are increasing their costs and not reducing them and not taking account of those who are very often less well off in society.
“Everybody has to take the pain. They might say they are taking 8 per cent cuts on professional fees for public work. But that does not compare to the 15 and 20 per cent cuts other people have suffered,” said Mr O’Keeffe.
Director general of the Law Society Ken Murphy said he had informed the Minister about the severe impact the recession has had on his profession. “An ever increasing number of solicitors are chasing a dramatically reduced volume of work and experiencing intense downward pressure on legal fees,” said Mr Murphy.
He said that as many as 1,200 solicitors were unemployed now compared to close to zero three years ago. He also pointed out that one of the mainstays of income, conveyancing, had all but collapsed.
Mr Murphy said that the reports by Forfás suggesting legal fees may have risen in the course of the last four years were completely unreliable.
He said the Central Statistics Office had conceded the research basis was “experimental, under development” and may be subject to methodological improvement.
He said there had been a tiny sample size of 18 solicitors’ firms from no less than 2,230 solicitors’ firms in practice. “It is a completely inadequate basis for conclusions,” he said.
Paul O’Higgins SC, chairman of the Bar Council, said that barristers’ fees varied enormously and that there had been a very large decrease in the level of fees, for both State and private clients.
He said that barristers were required to give an estimate before a case began, something that encouraged clients to shop around.
He pointed to decreases in property-related law as well as in family law where legal fees were paid once the family homes were sold. In many cases, the sale of the family home was being postponed, he said, resulting in barristers not getting paid.
“My guess is that overall the volume of work may not be less but the number of barristers in a position to make a living has decreased,” said Mr O’Higgins.
Dr Ronan Boland, vice-president of the Irish Medical Organisation, said the body would meet Mr O’Keeffe if he requested a meeting but added that the IMO was not allowed, under competition laws, to engage in any discussion on fees on behalf of its membership.
He said that since the Competition Act was enacted, it was up to the individual GPs alone to set their fees and a representative body is precluded from playing any role in that process.
He said that speaking as a Cork-based GP, it would be fair that say that most of his colleagues would “resent the inference that they were fleecing patients and that such an assertion was in no way justified”.
