Kinsella, Stephen.
This week, the head of the EU’s mission to Ireland, Dr Istvan Szekely, mentioned repeatedly in public that protected professions such as medicine, pharmacy, and law would face changes, which would open them up, dropping prices for consumers, removing the ability of professions to charge higher-than-average fees for their services. The predictable howl from various vested interests was mostly ignored by the media.
Professions charging less is no bad thing, I hear lots of you saying, and to an extent, I agree with you. To put it in perspective – while in the UK, a visit to the GP is free, in Ireland it costs at least €50 per visit; in the UK a lawyer charges a flat fee for conveyancy, in Ireland they charge a percentage of the price of the house (in the boom years this was quite an earner).
Πηγή: guardian.co.uk