John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I fully respect the need for a fair trial and the efforts the Minister has made to reduce the costs, but the message we are sending out is that all the rights are with the criminals. What about the victims? It is as simple and straightforward as that.

I was told recently by a member of the Garda Síochána that the head of a household which was getting €41,000 in social welfare got involved in selling drugs or whatever and was granted free legal aid automatically. I would ask that the matter be looked at so that where a person on social welfare is convicted of a crime, over a period there is some clawback from his or her social welfare. The criminals must be seen to take some pain for what they are inflicting on law-abiding citizens.

In researching this, I looked at other jurisdictions. In the United States, there is a three strike rule, where if somebody is convicted within a certain length of time of three similar serious offences, the sentence imposed is significantly increased. Could some model like that be used for those convicted repeatedly over a long period and being granted free legal aid? There must be some payback over a period to the State.

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