Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The issue of rural crime and the devastating harm it does to the fabric of rural communities is still a matter of significant and ongoing concern. The anger was palpable at a packed meeting held recently in Toomevara, County Tipperary. People attending that meeting expressed their view that effectively nothing has changed in recent years. They still feel as vulnerable as ever and that there are not enough gardaí or resources, as well as not enough meaningful sanctions in place against those who repeatedly commit these types of heinous crimes.

One of the related issues that emerged, however, was a clear sense that the legal aid system in this State is broken. People in rural Ireland feel that the system is totally stacked against them. Regarding costs, the amounts involved are truly staggering. I will go further and state that the costs associated with civil and criminal legal aid are utterly obscene and unjustifiable. The Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, confirmed to me in a reply to a parliamentary question that more than €605 million has been allocated for legal aid from 2011 to 2017. That is an astonishing amount of money and demonstrates that absolutely nothing is being done to reduce the outlandish fees being paid to provide this service. Information I have received shows that the cost of criminal and legal aid for each of the years from 2011 to 2017 has ranged from €49 million to €58 million. That is a staggering amount of money.

That was at a time when Garda stations were closed left, right and centre throughout the country. It was also at a time when Garda overtime was drastically cut in Tipperary and when vehicles and other tools of the policing trade were not available to the Garda. There were constant reviews of the resources available and constant cutbacks. The average cost of civil legal aid during the same period shows that it never dropped below €30 million per year. Imagine what that amount of money, or even half of it, could do to support and resource members of our Garda, who do a tremendous job day and night, despite being under-resourced and understaffed. Indeed, there was an increase of €9 million in the costs incurred for legal aid from 2011 to 2017. There has been a steady increase in that time and it is a nice little economy for certain people.

The former Minister for Justice and Equality, Frances Fitzgerald, promised as far back as September 2016 that the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Act 1962 was being reviewed. She also stated that the Department was preparing legislation to update the law and introduce powers to secure contributions from defendants, introduce more rigorous means testing and implement stronger sanctions against abuses. It is blatantly obvious that none of these things have come to pass. There is no will to do that. Instead, we are witnessing the fleecing of the nation's resources by a criminal element and the absolute abuse of the system. Although designed to protect rights, that system is now radically undermining the safety of entire communities. If we continue at this rate then the provision of legal aid will have cost us more than €1 billion within a few years. That will be at a time when the resources of the State will already be under significant pressure due to the full fallout from Brexit and the possible damage to the rural economy from the Mercosur deal.

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