Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 7 October 2026
11. Deputy Gary Gannon asked the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration if any amendments to SI 303 of 2026 have been made to bring his recently announced changes to the legal aid scheme into force. [70647/26]
View answerHave any amendments been made to the payment structure of SI 303 of 2026? If they have been made to bring these recently announced changes into line, this obviously pertains to the changes to the legal aid scheme.
Deputy Gannon's question arises in respect of the concession on foot of the request from the Law Society that I change the payment structure so that the payment would be split up. I proposed and have implemented a new payment structure that will see an initial payment upon request of €320 with a final €200 payable on receipt of the final order or 12 months after the initial assignment. My Department has put in place administrative arrangements to give effect to that split fee arrangement. I confirm to the Deputy that both initial payment requests for €320 and final payment requests for the €520 have been processed and paid to a number of solicitors. I do not see it as necessary to change the statutory instrument but regarding the practical issue, it is happening at present. Administratively, people are being paid the €320 for the first hearing and the €200 will come at the end of the case or after 12 months, whichever is the first.
While the Deputy has raised the issue of the new scheme, I should point out that since the commencement of the new system, as of 2 October, 2,400 new certificates, which are invoices for payment for legal aid, have been issued in respect of the District Court. That is with an approximate value of €1.25 million. Of the cases concluded under the new system since 1 July, approximately 75% concluded with one appearance only in court and 99% concluded cases were finalised within five appearances. Previously where a case concluded in one appearance, the solicitor would only be paid €240. Now they are paid a fee of €520 for that one appearance. That is why I think it is an appropriate and good system from the point of view of solicitors. The most important thing is from the point of view of court users. It will make the system more efficient.
To be clear, the Minister has not actually changed the statutory instrument to reflect the concessions. That has not happened yet.
That is interesting but I want to focus on the other point that the Minister made. He has made this point before about legal aid certificates being given out. I think he said 2,000 there.
Some 2,400.
Some 2,400. The Minister also knows that a legal aid certificate can be issued without a solicitor being present. He knows that certificates are often issued without a solicitor being present and that judges were granting legal aid to some unrepresented defendants, despite there being no solicitor named on the certificate. That means that the certificate may have been given. How many of those 2,400 certificates have solicitors actually named on the ticket? There has obviously been a variance between what has been said by the Minister and his Department and what the solicitors themselves believe is the reality. The Minister is using that figure but I do not think it is reflective of what he is hoping to present it as being.
The figures the Law Society referred to with regard to the drop related to what was happening in July. Being frank, in July there was widespread disruption in respect of the legal aid scheme in the District Court. That has now changed. Approximately 36 solicitors who resigned from the scheme have been reinstated. Last week, 11 solicitors were reinstated. In terms of the 2,400 new certificates that have been issued, my understanding - I have looked at the schedule and I get the Excel spreadsheet - is that every single one of them, to my recollection, has a solicitor attached to it. One can go down through it and see the solicitors who are assigned to it. There are more solicitors coming back into the scheme. It is an efficient system. It is working. I do not want to have a row with solicitors. They play a really important part in the administration of justice but the new scheme is working. It will work for solicitors but, most importantly of all, it will work for the public and court users.
There is absolutely no way one can look at our court system at the moment and think it is working effectively. I am not even going to go into the ins and outs of where I think the Minister is right or wrong. We are at a point where there are industrial relations disputes across the country. Every time a Minister or a union takes to a platform, they encourage the other side to get around the table and negotiate. I cannot for the life of me understand why four months into this dispute, the Minister is saying he is unwilling to negotiate. It makes his own Department an outlier with regard to every other industrial relations dispute in this country. I do not think there is exceptionalism as much as the Minister may feel there is. To my mind, it is not just about the Law Society. There are solicitors the length and breadth of the country. There are two outstanding issues. One is that they do not want to have multiple cases tried on the same certificate. Often, they are going to be tried in different courts. That is very much the case. If the Minister does not believe me, he should have a look at that.
The second is when it comes to complex issues in relation to children, mental health, and potentially addiction. The Minister said he is willing to be open to that. At four months in, can we not just get around the table and talk? What is happening around the country, whether in Dublin, Cork, or Mayo, is a shambles, and the Minister can fix it. People should not be asked to work for free.
Nobody is asking solicitors to work for free.
On the six occasions, solicitors in the court are the only ones not being paid.
In the budget yesterday, I procured €123 million for the legal profession in respect of the criminal legal aid scheme. They are not working for free. The Deputy can see the statistics about their earnings. I have no issue with that but my priority is to make it efficient for the public. On the negotiations, I have negotiated with the Law Society. Today, I sent a letter back to it. I got a letter from its president, Rosemarie Loftus, last week. I replied to it today. I sat down with the Law Society before the new scheme came in on 1 July. My officials have sat down with them on many occasions.
Since the new scheme, I sat down and negotiated and discussed it with them. Deputy Gannon's question was about the change I introduced. That change was introduced as a result of the Law Society and me sitting around the table.
It has not been changed.
The change now is that, administratively, people can be paid in split blocks. That is now happening as a result of what the Law Society said in respect of me.
You did not change it.
In terms of the multiple certificates, it is the case that the system was being abused. People were getting 50 or 60 certificates for one accused before the court.
There were three.
It was never intended to be like that.
There were three instances.
I can assure Deputy Gannon there were much more than three instances.
