Mr. Se?n Guerin:

That is slightly different, but it is a similar scheme. One of our submissions is that all of these ad hocnon-statutory schemes should be brought under the umbrella of an overarching scheme. The general scheme reflects, in a lot of ways, the 1962 Act, which drew very heavily from the English Poor Persons Defence Act of 1903. It is 120 years later and it is probably time that some thought was given to incorporating under the head of criminal legal aid all of the existing applications where the State acknowledges some responsibility to pay for legal aid for people. One of the difficulties with the existing scheme is, as the Chair has said, that although there are lawyers available to take the cases, they have to put a lot of work and time into those cases without a guarantee of payment.