Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak. Yesterday in Limerick, Ms Ann McCabe, widow of the murdered Detective Garda Jerry McCabe, launched a concert in the memory of her late husband, who was murdered in my constituency on 7 June 1996 while escorting a cash delivery to Adare post office. Ever since then in this House and elsewhere, we, the ordinary people of Ireland, have often reflected on the contribution of the men and women of An Garda Síochána. All previous speakers have alluded to the great work of gardaí. We need to remember that some members of the force have paid the ultimate sacrifice in having their lives cut short by people who for their own unscrupulous ends decided that they were legitimate targets. Detective Garda McCabe was shot while sitting defencelessly in a Garda car on the side of a street in Adare in County Limerick. I put on the record of the House my admiration for Ms Ann McCabe for the way in which she has remembered her husband and kept his memory alive during the intervening time. I also acknowledge his colleagues in the Limerick division of An Garda Síochána who have kept his memory alive through the network of Garda stations in the County Limerick division and specifically with the erection of a plaque on the main street in Adare.

I wish to change tack to speak on an issue about which I spoke in the last Dáil and which has again come to the fore in recent days. I refer to the administration of free legal aid, which has now almost descended into farce regarding who can get it and the conditions under which it is granted. In the last Dáil I raised many questions with the Minister for Justice and Equality on the cost of criminal legal aid and was told that in 2014 the total cost was approximately €50 million. Throughout the country people are outraged at the manner in which free legal aid is being administered, and specifically that a Member of this House getting a salary of €87,258 could qualify for free legal aid. There is something seriously wrong with our country when that can happen. If the people charged with the administration and allocation of free legal aid show a lack of willingness to look at a person's base salary but look at their disposable income and allocate free aid on that basis, we need to consider changing how that policy is administered. Where does this end? If a person earning €100,000 decides to give €90,000 away to the cats' and dogs' home, will he or she qualify for free legal aid? Will Members of this House in the future qualify for legal aid because they decide to forfeit their salaries to causes that are worth supporting? I had understood that under standards in public office legislation Members were limited in the amount they could give to a political party. In the wrap-up the Minister might enlighten us as to whether a Member of this House can allocate in excess of the limit allowed under the legislation to a political movement, party or whatever one wants to call it, while at the same time qualifying for free legal aid. This is being discussed on radio stations, in pubs and on streets up and down the country, and I am sure ordinary Deputies heard it on the doorsteps when out canvassing. There is a perceived abuse of free legal aid and it is no longer a perception as far as I am concerned. People are turning up perennially in the courts and getting free legal aid willy-nilly. It has culminated in a situation in which a Member of this House has qualified for it. This is an issue that must be addressed by the Minister for Justice and Equality. If a person on a salary that is above average - and paid for by the taxpayer, by the way - can qualify for that, there is a serious issue. What is to stop people in future from deciding they will divert some of their income away from attention by giving it to a cats' and dogs' home or another charity of their choice for a fixed period of time, thereby qualifying for legal aid under this precedent? It is an absolute scandal and an outrage.

For the past five years I have listened to false indignation from the Anti-Austerity Alliance and People Before Profit. They have gone very quiet over the allocation of free legal aid. These are the same people who talk about golden circles and propose taxing the rich and making sure that everybody pays their way. In my book, anybody on €87,258 does not need free legal aid. It is a scandal that the Members of this House have been silent on it. I have served on the Committee of Public Accounts. I say fair play to the Chairman of that committee. I think he is one of the only Members of the House who has made a public utterance on this.

Something has to be done about it. I raised the matter in the previous Dáil. Throughout the country people were referring to specific people who are in and out of court. The back pages of provincial newspapers report the same people turning up week in and week out in District and Circuit Courts all over Ireland. Ordinary compliant taxpayers are paying for it. I believe that enough is enough. If someone who is elected to this House, getting a good salary, can then decide to use some sort of measure to allow them under the radar to qualify for free legal aid, it is an absolute outrage. Any Government elected tomorrow, on Tuesday or whenever must address this unacceptable practice. Where will it end? In the previous Dáil when certain former Senators had to go to court, we had people from every hue of the far left, the mid-left and the right-left up in arms about a person even having the audacity to apply for free legal aid, yet here we have a Member who has got it and the House remains silent. That is a bigger scandal than the fact that the person got it.

Something must be done about it. If that means emergency amending legislation or encouraging somebody to make an appeal over what has been done here, that should be done. I will not stray into what the courts are doing - I know about the separation of powers. Having been elected to this House, I am obliged under the law and the Constitution, as a representative of the people, as a Teachta Dála, to tell this House what the people are telling me. They are absolutely livid that anybody elected to this House could qualify for that allowance with this sort of carry-on. I ask the Minister of State to go to the Minister for Justice and Equality when the debate has concluded. While I am not sure about the Technical Group, I am sure that Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and every other political party will support the allocation of time once the Government is formed for emergency amending legislation to deal with this. It cannot be allowed to continue. We have listened to diatribes and every sort of high moral ground conquest from people with big salaries who now have the audacity to go looking for this sort of assistance from the State. It is absolutely scandalous. If something is not done about it, God help whoever becomes the next Minister for Justice and Equality, because it cannot be allowed to continue.

A system that was originally designed to help people in genuine need has been turned into a gravy train for the Four Courts and it has to be called to a halt. There should be decency in how public money is spent and this issue needs to be put under the microscope. I know the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts and I have previously discussed this matter in that committee. Unlimited amounts of money are being allocated to people who turn up perennially in our courts. That has to stop. People are fed up of it.

Irrespective of who the new Minister for Justice and Equality might be, I do not believe anybody will object to ensuring that the taxpayers' money is protected and that only those in genuine need get it. This would not happen in any other jurisdiction in the world. We would be laughed out of court, to borrow a phrase. Such activity not just by a Member of the Dáil but by people who are up and down like yo-yos in our Circuit Courts, District Courts and even the Four Courts would not be tolerated in any other jurisdiction in the world. Something seriously needs to be done about it. People are very angry that this has been allowed to happen. They are even angrier that this House has remained silent on it. There is an onus on whoever forms the next Government to deal with this effectively. It is the worst form of loophole I have ever seen. One could drive an articulated lorry through it, but the person driving the articulated lorry at the moment has no difficulty in showing a degree of hypocrisy that I have yet to see matched in this House or anywhere else.

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