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THE MINIMUM FINANCIAL contribution for availing of legal aid is to increase by 160 per cent following a statutory instrument introduced by the Minister for Justice.
Under previous rules the minimum contribution to the legal aid board was €50 in cases of representation but this has now been upped to €130. The of cost legal advice has also increased €10 to €30.
The Department of Justice estimates that the changes will provide the legal aid board with an extra €700,000 per year which Minister Shatter says will cut wait times and lead to a better service.
The Minister says that he is “conscious that the increase in the minimum contribution as a percentage is significant” but maintains that it is still low by international standards .
There has been a consistent increase in cases handled by the legal aid board in recent years which this year has a budget of €36.5 million.
There are also to be changes in eligibility for legal aid. Previously, an individual was required to demonstrate disposable capital of less than €320,000 to qualify but this figure has been reduced to €100,000. The value of an applicant’s home is not included in calculating disposable capital but their remaining assest are.
HSE cases
As part of the changes announced today parents are to be waived the financial contribution if they are defending themselves against the HSE in cases of child welfare. This provision is in place in other countries with similar legal systems but Minister Shatter said that it is now necessary to introduce it here:
I am conscious that these cases are public law matters and the parent is facing the might of the State. In those circumstances I do not believe that it remains appropriate that the parent should be obliged to make a financial contribution for their legal representation
Asylum seekers are also facing increased charges with those seeking civil legal services for asylum related matters now paying a once-off contribution of €10 as opposed to €6 at present.
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Disposable capital of €100,000?? That’s a lot of walking around money! So I guess the Irish legal system is free for 99% of the population!
@Ted
100,000€ and entitled to legal aid
thats gas! How about limiting the number of times the scroats and co. can get it
Is legal aid the fis for the learned class!
The competition authority should get involved in this racket. In most sectors when the client base can’t afford the service charges, service providers are forced to compete for business by lowering prices to affordable levels. The governments involvement in this area is making many lawyers rich, clogging our legal system with frivolous appeals and costing those that don’t qualify for full legal aid a fortune.
This is only to do with civil legal aid.
Crimnal Legal aid is paid 100% by state, no contribution from the s**m bag thieves, rapist, robbers etc.
€36.5 million is just one of the few slush funds for our legal vultures. How they must love repeat offenders. They keep those doors revolving for their workers to get back out into society and cause chaos fir the rest of us. Free Legal Aid has to be the worst terminology ever afforded to an entity because the taxpayer still picks up the tab.
Disposable capital isn’t cash!
On the ball nigel, anyone can f#uck up so should have free legal aid 3 times. After that, tought tits. as long as we have a solicitor as the head of the dept of justice solicitors will be left alone
Watched a man in the circuit court today on a warrant and he was represented by one company, he was then brought to the district court in the same building on a seperate warrant and represented by a different company in the space of half an hour. Its the biggest gravy train in the state.
look people if all the ODC were in jail how do you expect these solicitors to make a living.
You have to be illegal or doing something illegal to make it in this country
Simple – cut legal aid in half and get there social welfare payments to pay half of their bill
C how much trouble they get into then
So a reduced income from the dole is going to put these people on the straight and narrow ?
Sorry but don’t think the threat of getting €94 cut from their dole is going to stop these toerags from a life of crime.
Shouldn’t be difficult to deduct money from their social welfare if its perfectly legal to take money from PAYE wages for property tax so why is it not being done !
Is this a joke????? We’re cutting critical services all around us, yet we’re giving useless parents and criminals extra money to defend themselves!!!
No favours been done? members of our legal system are all friends, I wonder what political party they are apart of.
Very misleading headline and article.
The contribution is going up. This means the actual cost is going down.
Also – this is civil right? Not criminal?
Crime does pay, at least for some professions.
It pays very well indeed.
Its not just people involved in criminality who need legal aid, its often normal people seeking help from the courts for issues like family law, domestic violence etc. The cost, together with the waiting list of 11 months in some areas for a first consultation, are only going to force those on low incomes or on welfare to pay for a private solicitor or exclude them from the justice system altogether.
Access to justice should be a basic right regardless of your income.
The legal system is a gravy train and has being left untouched despite it being in the troika agreement
That is for sure /…..where is the legal ombudsman as ordered by the troika
The lawmakers are always thinking up ways to make lawyers rich !
You don’t know what you are talking about! A barrister who has 2 law degrees and 5 years study can charge 25 euro!! Yes… Twenty five euro for an appearance in the district court. Minus tax, travel Etc and you have nothing. It’s solicitors who are well paid, barristers earn pittance.
Don’t get in trouble then
Why not?
It’s all covered.
To the many ignorant posters on this thread, the legal aid referred to in the above article is CIVIL legal aid! Civil legal aid (i.e. non-criminal cases and in practice especially family law cases) is administered by the Legal Aid Board which is a State agency with full-time solicitors employed to provide hugely subsidised legal aid to impecunious members of the public who satisfy a means test. Those solicitors are paid a set salary by the Board and do not personally receive additional fees if they win the case. There is also a panel of private practice solicitors who, from time to time, can be allocated work by the Legal Aid Board where the volume of business requires. These private practice solicitors receive a modest set fee irrespective of the actual amount of work involved or the number of times a case is before the Court. The level of service impecunious litigants receive from the Legal Aid Board is incredible having regard to the absolute token contribution paid by them towards the actual costs involved. An increase in this contribution is to be welcomed as it means it costs the taxpayer less to subsidise this remarkable service.
This is how they are planning to cut the waiting time.
Keep upping the costs until only the rich can afford it.
Job done.
By the way how many sitting TD’s and members are ex Solicitors or have legal background
Let any law abiding citizen go to any district court in the country for one hour on any given day and the hair would stand on your head to see the carry on. The free legal aid system (criminal) is a joke and we are all paying for it through the nose. There should be state defence in every court to cut the costs not the system that’s there at the moment its a gravy train for solicitors!!!!
Are you sure about that? Hiring defence solicitors, paid for by the State, at 60/70/80k per year, plus a staff. Then you have premises and administrative expenses, photocopying etc on top of that in addition to resources such as legal books etc.
All of that has to be carried by the State for each and every District in the country.
You still certain it would be cheaper?
By a long shot.
Really? How so?
Free Legal AId to ONE solicitor in Cork last year was over 1 million…………..5 defence solicitors @80,000 each equals…400,000….premises..100,000….4 legal secretaries @ 50,000 each equals..200,000…..I’m still ..only at 700,000 AND I have only costed that on ONE solicitors earnings…throw in printing etc and you have some office!!!!
Typical just increase the financil burden onto people while the fat cats in the Dail eat lobster for lunch
This is so effing wrong!!! I couldnt afford to use a paid solicitor due to fees so went for legal aid… Two years later STILL waiting for a friggin court date!!! If i was paying big money my court dealing would be done and dusted!!! (Family law by the way not criminal!!) and now i have to pay more??? This country belongs to the rich and the ‘professionals’ and to hell with the rest of us!!!
Correct, Family law is civil law.
But the big question is why are child abuse cases and domestic abuse cases heard in civil matters,when both are crimes?
Civil courts expect all parties to work matters out civilly and hence victims are expected to bow to their abusers.
These abuse cases belong in criminal courts where juries decide, rather than one social worker’s opinion being taken as fact.
Its all a money racket as courts are corporations and corporations are profit machines.
Also note BAR risters etc swear allegiance to the BAR corporation in London.
Solicitors solicit business for the court corporation and we have to all wake up to the whole truth of our “law” and admiralty law. It takes a lot of research and study but so worth it.
Nonsense. Start to finish.
Everyone should be entitled to free legal aid once and thereafter you pay for yourself
Equal and fair
How would that work?
Someone gets free legal aid when they’re 18 and five years later they are accused of a serious crime and aren’t entitled to legal aid? So they either have to pay huge money which they don’t have or receive no legal advice at all?
It’s just not feasible.
Pay for it yourself ,not tax money .this would speed up the system as well as the solicitors etc would really need to have a few clients paying quickly .
Premises at €100,000?
Come on now.
Pay for it yourself? How? They don’t have the money, that’s the whole point. So they end up not represented at all.
You’re not being realistic.
shatters policy not international law .
a system rotten to the core in .. one for all and all for one.. its against the law of common law
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