Ms Sinéad Lucey:

On the Deputy's question regarding efficiencies, I refer the committee to the decision in the Airey v. Ireland case before the European Court of Human Rights, which prompted the introduction of a civil legal aid system. There is a huge question as to whether we are in compliance with that decision in terms of our current legal aid system, the number of exclusions, the time it takes to access legal aid and the financial threshold at which a person qualifies for aid. This feeds into the efficiencies. There has been an exponential rise in lay litigants going before the court, leading to judges having to spend a huge amount of time guiding the lay litigant through the system and procedures so they can at least get their cases heard. While judges are very good at doing this, they do not really have the time to do it. Often, cases are misconceived and people expose themselves to cost, which if they had had access to a lawyer they would have known at an earlier stage. This is a cost on the system that a properly functioning legal aid system might diminish and improve efficiencies as well.