Ms Stephanie Lord:

There was an initiative in Canada on the unbundling of legal services and a good deal of research done by Professor Julie Macfarlane. If it would be helpful, I can forward it to Deputy Ó Laoghaire and the other members after the meeting. Unbundling of the legal services involves providing funding for people who will access legal aid but who, through that, might have representation, advice only, assistance with completing forms or guidance on how to navigate the courts process or a combination of any or all of those.

In terms of FLAC's perspective, we would like to see a proper, comprehensively funded civil legal aid set-up where people can access advice and representation according to need. In the interim, on the way to achieving that larger goal, we recognise that there is a major budgetary issue in that regard and that much analysis needs to be done in terms of deciding the scope of what is actually needed to provide the level of funding required. We would like to see those additional mechanisms put in place. We do not see them necessarily as a replacement for providing people with both advice and representation but it is something that could be examined on the way to getting to that point. There are many initiatives that could be introduced for lay litigants that do not cost much money. That would make the process much easier to navigate. Does that answer the Deputy's question?