I say this with scepticism. Of course I believe in people's right to legal representation. However, we need to be careful when talking about such rights. There is an old cliché that everybody has the right to have dinner in the best restaurant in the Shelbourne Hotel. Even though everyone has the right, 95% of the population will never be there because they cannot afford to exercise that right. The distance between saying people have a right to legal representation and the numbers of people who would be excluded entirely from legal representation if it were not for free legal aid services provided either voluntarily or by the State is a comment on the gap between the aspiration to the right and the experience of ordinary people. Legal representation costs a vast amount of money.