911 Deputy Alan Shatter asked the Minister for Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs in each of the years 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 the arrangements entered into by his Department for the obtaining of advice from a firm of solicitors and-or from senior or junior counsel; in each case the subject matter in respect of which advices were sought, the name of the solicitors firm and or barristers concerned and the fees paid; the nature of the work concerned, that is, whether it involved the drafting of legislation or the obtaining of legal advices; whether in each case the matter concerned was advertised for tender and where not, why not. [1617/11]

The table below sets out the details sought by the Deputy in relation to the three occasions where my Department directly obtained advice from a firm of solicitors, or from Senior or Junior Counsel, between 1 January 2006 and 31 December 2010. In each case, the services of external solicitors and/or barristers were procured to provide essential legal advice, legal opinion or to carry out specialist legal work where the legal expertise required was not available in-house. Competitive tendering processes were not held in the cases in question on the basis that the solicitors/barristers had extensive, specialist knowledge of the particular relevant areas.