Ms Helen Coughlan:

The Legal Aid Board certainly needs to be better resourced and needs to have more solicitors in order that those delays in even seeing a solicitor for the first consultation are reduced. There was a private practitioner scheme for dealing with matters in the District Court in respect of custody access and maintenance. From our experience, however, due to the fee structure that was put in place, most private practitioners no longer do it because it is not cost effective for them. That feeds back into the delays with the solicitors employed by the Legal Aid Board to deal with cases