Mr. Keith Walsh:

The major problem is the volume of people who need to seek legal aid. It is means-assessed so one has to be earning less than a certain amount of money to qualify. The number of people who fall into that bracket and who are involved in family law proceedings is quite large. The Legal Aid Board is involved in roughly one third of all Circuit Court cases and a slightly smaller portion of District Court cases. The Legal Aid Board is a huge player in this area. From my experience, the type of person who is attracted to work with the Legal Aid Board is somebody who wants to make a difference and who is not necessarily motivated by money, because it is not hugely well-paid work. They are people who genuinely want to help people resolve problems.

Resourcing is a massive issue. More resources should be given to the Legal Aid Board so that it could hire more solicitors and set up private practitioner schemes that would work to take some of the burden off the board. We are not talking about hugely well-paid schemes but about adequately funded schemes. This would mean, for example, that instead of a Legal Aid Board solicitor spending a full day in District Court doing one case, that work could be hived off to private practitioners. A restructuring of how the Legal Aid Board does business is certainly required. The board constantly looks at that. We meet its chief executive, Mr. John McDaid, and other members of the board regularly and they say they require more resources due to the volume of people applying for legal aid.

Delays in respect of legal aid usually affect the other person involved. That person may also be on legal aid, which may result in a delay to his or her case, but if he or she is not the court considers equality of arms and fairness. If one of two parties is on legal aid it slows the case down for both people. If somebody applies for legal aid, it slows down proceedings. The Law Society believes more resources are necessary.