Why can’t we have a state website http://WWW.Generalpractitionerprices.ie. All GPs required to submit prices once a month. Public can search their area for cheapest.

Provide something similar for lawyers, estate agents etc…

GDP-per-capita: Irl is still ahead (though falling) at 129, while Germany’s position has improved to 121.

AIC-per-capita: Actual Individual Consumption is a better measure of living standards, according to Eurostat. Here, Irl drops to 101, highlighting the effect of MNC/FDI on the GDP figures. Germany is at 120.

Price levels: Irl = 119, Germany = 102

So we pay 16.6% or one-sixth more for goods and services than the Germans, although our real consumption levels is one-sixth less.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-SF-12-047/EN/KS-SF-12-047-EN.PDF

Or have they looked at this ongoing work by the respective departments during any of their reviews?

Maybe Enda’s Ministerial report cards will be issued after all, albeit not from the Taoiseach’s office.

The other side of things – whether appointment of receivers, or lawyers, or drug costs – mostly comes under the public sector procurement banner, where we need systems to induce lower bids and competition between providers in services for the government. Lots of work to be done there I am sure.

And on retail competition, of course the wildly high minimum wage, a disgrace with such high unemployment, does need to be reduced.

You are absolutely right. Consider these two Parliamentary Questions to the health and justice ministers last October 2012. Are you impressed with the responses?

Deputy Pearse Doherty: To ask the Minister for Health if he will confirm the requirements to reform competition and practice in the health sector set out in the Memorandum of Understanding with the programme Troika; the dates on which such requirements are to be complied with..

Minister for Health, James Reilly : The Memorandum of Understanding agreed with the EU/IMF in December 2010 provided that the Government would introduce legislative changes to remove restrictions to trade and competition in sheltered sectors including:

- eliminating restrictions on the number of GPs qualifying and removing restrictions on GPs wishing to treat public patients as well as restrictions on advertising;

- ensuring that the elimination of the 50% mark-up paid for medicines under the State’s Drugs Payments Scheme is enforced.

The Health (Provision of General Practitioner Services) Act 2012 was enacted in February 2012 and commenced on 12 March 2012. It eliminates restrictions on fully qualified and trained GPs wishing to obtain contracts to treat public patients under the General Medical Services (GMS) contract. By the 30th September 2012, 78 GPs had been granted a GMS contract by the Health Service Executive under the provisions of the Act and in excess of 40 applications are currently being processed.

Legislation was not required in relation to the other provision of the Memorandum.

In relation to the number of GPs qualifying, the HSE and the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) have reached agreement on an alternative route to specialist registration for doctors who have extensive experience in General Practice, but who lack some component of training to become eligible for specialist registration as a GP. Details of this “practice based assessment model” were published on the ICGP website in September 2011. It is anticipated that the application period for this route to membership will open in early 2013.

In relation to restrictions on advertising, until 2009, the Medical Council’s “Guide to Professional Conduct and Ethics for Registered Medical Professionals” placed advertising restrictions on new GPs. They were only allowed to advertise their arrival in an area by way of newspaper notices. Other methods of advertising, including notification of prices, were not allowed. The Medical Council’s current guidelines, published in November 2009, have removed these restrictions. GPs are now free to advertise their services and their prices.

In relation to the pharmacy profession, the 50% mark-up payable under the Drug Payment Scheme was reduced to 20% in 2009 by way of regulations made under the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Act 2009. These regulations are enforced by the HSE. No further action is required under this heading.

Deputy Pearse Doherty: To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if he will confirm the requirements to reform competition and practice in the legal sector set out in the Memorandum of Understanding with the programme Troika, and the dates on which such requirements are to be complied with..

Minister for Justice and Equality, Alan Shatter: The Programme of the Government for National Recovery 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 Programme of Financial Support for Ireland aimed at removing restrictions to trade and competition relating to the legal professions and legal costs, namely:
to establish an independent regulator for the legal professions and implement the recommendations of the Legal Costs Working Group; and
to implement the outstanding Competition Authority recommendations to reduce legal costs.
Effect is being given to these structural reform commitments in the form of the Legal Services Bill 2011 which was published, in keeping with the relevant time-line under the Troika Programme, for the end of Quarter 3 of 2011. As the Deputy will be aware, the Bill, which remains a priority under the Government Legislation Programme, completed Second Stage in the Dáil in February and is awaiting Committee Stage.

I have made comprehensive statements on the Bill and its continuing development both at the Annual Conference of the Law Society on the 14th of April and at the conference hosted by my Department on Regulatory Reform for a 21st Century Legal Professionwhich took place on 6th July. The full text of these statements is available on the Department website, http://www.justice.ie, for ease of reference. I continue to receive submissions in relation to the Bill from various stakeholders and these are being considered as part of the ongoing deliberative process in preparation for Committee Stage.

In light of this continuing work, I am confident that the Bill, when enacted, will better balance the interests of consumers of legal services and those of legal practitioners who provide them while modernising the legal costs regime in a way conducive to greater scrutiny and competitiveness. Substantial, positive progress has been made towards achieving the desired and important balance between the independence of the legal professions and the Government’s stated policy objective of independent regulation. I have made known the intended scope of the amendments to the Bill that will place the new regulatory and disciplinary architecture for the two legal professions beyond any undue interference by Minister or Government. This effectively lays to rest those concerns about impinging on the independence of the legal professions that had been initially voiced in relation to the Bill and its motivation.

As the Bill approaches Committee Stage it has reached a point where it is set to provide for an independent Legal Services Regulatory Authority, an independent complaints framework and an independent Legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Tribunal. These are being buttressed by the functions and powers of a modernised Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicator, with the support of transparent Legal Costs Principles and procedures. The Bill will also open the legal services sector to the future and its new business models and technologies in a way that will benefit the legal professions as much as it will enhance the position of their clients.

Work on the details of the proposed amendments to the Bill is, therefore, ongoing at my Department including in conjunction with the Offices of the Attorney General and of Parliamentary Counsel and the EU/IMF/ECB Troika. As I have previously stated, the relevant amendments will be made available in advance of Committee Stage along with the relevant Regulatory Impact Analysis. It remains my objective, notwithstanding the competing legislative demands of our EU/IMF/ECB Programme commitments – notably the Personal Insolvency Bill which continues to occupy Members of both Houses – that Committee Stage of the Legal Services Regulation Bill should commence as soon as possible, preferably before the end of this year.

Was that not part of the reform package somewhere along the line?

a flat economy in which living standards have dropped considerably and yet Dublin apparently still has the second most expensive lawyers in Europe after Moscow.

Heh. It seems the more lawless your society, and the bigger the criminals in charge of the country, the more you have to pay the lawyers to go along with the system. Not that Irish lawyers ever needed incentives to muddy their precious silks.

I’d love to know what the ranine Minister for Enterprise, Richard Bruton does all day

He spends most of his time trying not to associate himself with this failure of a Government.

There is a desperate need for the Authority to aggressively tackle costs throughout the economy, and perhaps figuratively hang a few high profile bodies from lampposts to encourage an acceleration in reforms to competitiveness.

We need to literally hang high profile company directors and executives(and lawyers) in this country, so bad is the situation. A gallows should be erected on O’Connell Street for the purpose. It needs to be public, complete with city residents throwing fruit and jeering. Very little else will act as a real deterrent for this class of criminal.