Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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I was reading, on page 6 of the report, about the number of judges in Ireland. Ms Jourová said that more judges were needed to deal with the backlog of cases and that we had the lowest number of judges, per head of population, in the EU and that there have been some other concerns expressed because following Covid there are backlogs, especially in family law cases. Citizens' access to justice is obviously affected by that. She added that there is a perception that the State is not prioritising this if we are the lowest. Do she wish to expand on that?

Some concerns have been expressed to the committee that the cuts which were imposed on criminal legal aid, especially after the financial crash ten years ago, have not been removed. There is now a considerable shortage of lawyers with experience in crime, because the remuneration has not been enough to keep them in it. There is a statistic that two third of barristers who commence a career in criminal law leave after only six years in practice. That is obviously a concern for the defence of the individual before the courts.

She made other interesting comments, one of which was on mobile citizens. Would a mobile citizen be someone who did not necessarily have an address in, but was a citizen of, that state? Does she envisage that there may be facilities made available to those citizens, if they were citizens, to vote without an address?

My other question is on types of legal aid for dealing with the courts with regard to domestic violence, landlord and tenant or a work-related dispute. Could or should legal aid be expanded in this State? I apologise for the number of questions but I am especially interested in mobile citizens.