Legal aid reform dispute 'at standstill' - Law Society

The Law Society of Ireland (LSI) has said a dispute over legal aid fees has "effectively come to a standstill" and that victims have been left "in limbo".

It comes as the free legal aid dispute is set to enter another month, with a courts backlog affecting victims, defendants and solicitors.

Last week, a meeting of more than 100 Dublin-based solicitors agreed to continue a withdrawal of services which began last month.

Solicitors in Cork are meeting today and are expected to do the same.

The dispute centres on changes to the legal aid payment system announced in July, which introduced a flat-fee payment.

Solicitors said the flat-fee payment of €520 per client in the district court is unworkable.

Under the old system, a solicitor was paid for each court appearance by a single person, starting at just over €239 for the first appearance and almost €60 for each subsequent hearing.

Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan said the old scheme incentivised multiple adjournments and that cases paid for by legal aid took longer to complete than others.

Speaking on RTÉ's Today with David McCullagh, LSI spokesperson Ian McNamara said: "The law society has put a proposal to the minister at the end of last month that was declined or refused without any further change. Our position does not change."

Mr McNamara, who is a criminal solicitor in Co Tipperary, said solicitors are not satisfied to come back to work or to start accepting work or go back on to the panel.

He said those in the higher courts are the worst affected, particularly the circuit court because that affect would last longer due to the backlog in cases, which he said would take 12 months to clear.

"Victims and witnesses and family members of victims are having to put up with this delay. It is unknown. Will this be fixed in a week, a month or six months," he said.

Mr McNamara said the net issue has been narrowed by the society to bring it to a conclusion.

He said the first issue is if there are separate and distinct cases coming to the court at the same time, that they receive separate legal aid certificates.

Mr McNamara added that for exceptionally long cases, that after 10 attendances, that the solicitor would be able to reapply for a new legal aid certificate.

He said that is all that is left on the table in the dispute now.

Mr McNamara said he is willing to accept that there were peculiar cases where somebody made the claim for 50 or 100 certs in the one attendance.

He said "nobody would stand over that" but refused to say if he would stand over there being abuse by solicitors of a system that encouraged adjournments so solicitors could get more fees for follow on appearances.

On the newly proposed flat-fee system, Mr McNamara said the society are trying to show by not looking for payment after seven, eight or nine attendances.

He said once there are more than 10 attendances or adjournments, "there has to be a compensation for the actual work done".

Mr McNamara said it is not common for there to be more than 10 appearances but that these are the "most vulnerable cases".

He said the concern is that these cases will become unworkable and that they will be avoided because there will be no pay for the amount of extra work needed to be done.

Mr McNamara said the backlog will impact prisons as it will create an influx of sentencing cases.

"If there is no place [in prison] to put them, what happens? Will there be pressure on people serving longer sentences to be released early to make space," he said.

He added that if there is no further engagement by Mr O’Callaghan before October, "I don’t see there being a fix before then".

"One would hope that there would be further engagement and a counter proposal by the minister," he said, adding that criminal solicitors are "willing to go the long haul".