More disruption as solicitors protest new legal aid fees

Disruption to court hearings at all levels is expected to get worse in the coming days as solicitors escalate their action over payments for criminal legal aid work.

The solicitors are protesting over the introduction of a flat fee per client regardless of the number of hearings involved in a case.

Most defendant solicitors are paid each time they appear for a client in a district court, but, from 1 July, the Department of Justice is replacing this system with a flat-fee model.

Currently, a solicitor is paid for each court appearance, starting at €239.38, and then €59.86 for each subsequent hearing.

From 1 July, a new set fee of €455 will be payable regardless of how many court appearances there are - removing the link between payments and the number of appearances for solicitors.

Last week, solicitors withdrew their services in cases involving an accused person on bail. More than 250 solicitors met in the headquarters of the Law Society in Dublin last week, and after another meeting this morning, individual solicitors have decided to take further action.

This will involve withdrawing their services from evening courts, Saturday courts or special sittings. There will also be no attendance or phone advice at garda stations from midnight. And they will not act for clients who are in custody with new cases also from midnight.

The solicitors will continue to act in custody cases where they are already assigned, they say, but it is expected no new juries will be sworn for cases where the accused is on bail.

The action has meant thousands of cases in courts from the district to the Central Criminal Court have had to be adjourned since it began last Wednesday, and more disruption is now inevitable.

In a message to members, the Law Society President, Rosemarie Loftus, said the situation had escalated to a point "none of us wanted to reach". She said this was deeply regrettable as she said the Law Society had engaged constructively, had published detailed submissions and sought meetings.

She said they had raised the issue at every political level, yet the Department of Justice intended to press ahead with the flat-fee model.

The Law Society has also strongly criticised a review of the criminal legal aid system by the Department of Justice.

Ms Loftus said she was dismayed at some of the claims in the review and said the department was using "anecdotes and inference" to undermine the profession.

She said solicitors had been portrayed unfairly as maximising payments and causing unnecessary delays when, in reality, solicitors representing vulnerable clients were dealing with complex cases and adjournments driven by prosecution and court resources they did not control.

She said solicitors doing legal aid work had faced "scurrilous assertions" that they were seeking to intentionally abuse the system for financial gain.

She said the flat-fee model would lead to a cap on legal representation, undermining the complex expert services they provide.

She added that they were now at a critical juncture in efforts to have the proposals put on hold.