Ms Rose Wall:

In our services, which is all we can comment on, the biggest area of demand is family law advice because of the under-resourcing of the Legal Aid Board and because people do not know about the board. We often see people at an early stage of their family law issue and they do not know where to go. They know about our law centre because it is embedded in the community, but they have not heard of the Legal Aid Board. Family law is an area of demand for us. The other main areas are housing, employment and debt. There is a growing need arising in the area of education. We have been handling many cases recently for children with disabilities who are put on shortened school days or who have informal exclusion mechanisms applied to them. We are providing them with advice. Those are the main areas, but they can change. Sometimes it changes in response to a new circular or a new practice that has developed in an office or body of the State which creates a new area of demand. Apart from family law, employment, housing and debt are big areas and they are not catered for by the legal aid scheme.