Mr. Stephen Kirwan:

I thank the Chairman for his very insightful questions. Again, he has hit on the nub of the opening statement, so I appreciate his time in that regard.

The first question he asked was whether or not the Law Society believes legal aid should be granted to all asylum seekers at reception stage, and our answer is "Yes". What we have often relied on when we have had public documents or when we have published or gone to meetings with key stakeholders is the analogy with criminal legal aid. If someone is involved in a police detention, for example, legal aid is routinely given to him or her, and we would say that a Garda station detention would certainly be of the same level of priority as someone looking to claim international protection. It is always controversial when lawyers turn up asking for more money - it is not a positive contribution at times - but, really, we have to look at this as a systemic thing. If problems are caused by translation difficulties or a lack of proper legal advice at the start, these cases inevitably take longer.

Problems that arise at first instance are often dealt with on appeal, but they could easily have been dealt with six months or a year previously. That happens time and again. Mr. O'Dwyer mentioned cases that we have been involved with. We see this all the time. The backlog is not only caused by lack of resources. There are other issues and early preventative measures could save the Exchequer money in the long run. I know it is rich to have a lawyer advocating for more money, but it is not just that. It is more about looking at the holistic system and it is a false economy to not provide it, so I believe it should be provided.

With regard to ancillary services, the Chairman mentioned the Afghanistan crisis and the fact that it is obviously in the zeitgeistat present. That is a powerful example of where we would have a number of clients who would be entitled to family reunification. When somebody is granted asylum there is a right to apply for certain family members to join the person here. Of course, it is a much more limited scheme now since the introduction of the International Protection Act. Under the old 1996 Act, a much wider gamut of people could apply for family reunification, but that has been quite limited. We definitely see that problem now with the Afghanistan crisis and the Minister's response to trying to expedite certain claims that, unfortunately, were somewhat hemmed in by a scheme and very much reliant on discretion. In the context of such services, when a client comes to either the Legal Aid Board or a private practitioner, these things are not covered by legal aid. My view is that while it appears to be ancillary to the main claim, in reality it is central. I know the Minister has to prioritise certain schemes but, for me, that would be absolutely fundamental. We are a nation of high emigration. I am a product of it myself, being a dual citizen with my parents having had to leave and so forth many years ago. For a country that is so proud of its emigrants and about providing supports, it appears to be very contradictory that we have something that could be easily implemented and that would not cost a massive of money to do or to facilitate, yet we ignore it and, in fact, limit that right. That is something the Law Society of Ireland has been advocating and other organisations, including the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, have campaigned on it fiercely.

Another question asked was about the level of fees payable. The Law Society of Ireland has suggested on previous occasions, with regard to the fee payable, that the criminal courts would probably be the easiest analogy to draw. Mr. Nick Henderson of the Irish Refugee Council has spoken about this previously and calculated that it can take up to 30 hours to work through an asylum file from start to finish. That is 30 hours one would be billing for as the core, but it does not count the countless telephone calls, the emails and things out of hour. That is the problem. What has happened is that many very conscientious practitioners have unfortunately moved on. As they do not have the time and resources, they have not been able to dedicate or felt professionally competent or able to provide the support that is required and have simply just turned away from the scheme. I know of some of the best human rights practitioners in the country, particularly in Dublin, who are no longer taking on legal aid claims, and it is a shame. It is shame because it is doing clients a disservice and it is also heaping more pressure onto an already understaffed legal aid system and onto the law centres.

I cannot necessarily say or I do not have any information about whether the lack of availability of legal aid or legal services is necessarily causing further delay in terms of getting appeals or first instance decisions.

From practice, and certainly from experience, I can inform the committee that very few officers would be willing to proceed without ensuring that someone has received legal aid or has tried to facilitate that. That definitely has to be a contributing factor. As I said, I only have my knowledge, or what is heard through the grapevine. I do not know if anything has been published specifically on this but it would make sense to me and it is an obvious point. If deciding officers are waiting on legal advice to be given and are withholding appeals, or are not proceeding when legal advice is not available and if it is very hard to get practitioners, then it makes perfect sense.

The other problem is the regional variants. There are certain regional towns, and certainly provinces one would nearly say at this stage, where there is little to no coverage at all. I know from my own practice that we have clients coming from as far as Donegal and Sligo. I try to meet them halfway in Kinnegad which is not as hospitable. Some people have to travel distances just to get basic legal advice. That is, again, because of the unattractiveness of the scheme but also because practitioners are trying their best to be diligent and to only take on a certain number of cases, given the amount of work that is involved. I hope that answers the questions in some way.