Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

It is amazing how many Bills were being prepared by the former Minister that never saw the light of day and on which I have discovered minimal work was done. There will be a Bill brought forward in regard to the area of legal aid. I do not anticipate that it will be published until the new year because of the other demands made on my Department.

The group that the Deputy makes reference to that received some publicity during the summer months, as far as I am aware, has not been in contact with my Department. There are two representative bodies of the legal profession, the Law Society and the Bar Council. We are always willing to engage with them on issues of concern when they arise. I do not anticipate that lawyers, as officers of the court, in the straitened financial circumstances in which the State finds itself will withdraw services. They will, I am sure, do their duty by their clients and will clearly acknowledge and accept that right across all sectors there have been reductions in income.

In this context, it is worth noting that the figures on the amount of expenditure incurred by the State, between counsel instructed by the DPP and counsel instructed in criminal legal aid matters, give rise to an interesting disparity. For example, in 2010 the DPP's fees to counsel came to a total of €14 million and the criminal aid fees paid to counsel were €18,000,369.

Whilst I said in the context of the EU and IMF agreement it was envisaged that there would be a reduction of €5 million in expenditure in the criminal legal aid area from €56 million to €51 million, for reasons that remain a considerable mystery to me the former Minister, Dermot Ahern, in the context of the justice Estimate and budget that went through in December 2010, only provided for €47 million funding in circumstances in which €56 million was the outturn for 2010. Effectively, there was a shortfall of €9 million left by the previous Government on the funding available this year for criminal legal aid.

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