Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

No, it is a specialist panel within the legal aid service. Following a request one is entitled to a tribunal hearing within 21 days. All the experts are present. That happens. It is not as if somebody says he or she cannot be there in 21 days and that one will have it in 30 days. It is a specialist area and people are available for it.

The Senator raised the issue of costs. Thankfully I am not responsible for costs. Whenever I come across anything for which I am not responsible I always say, "Thanks be to God." The fees are set by the Legal Aid Board in consultation with the Department of Justice and Equality and will be no more or no less than for any legal service. Account would always be taken of the fact that one does not want to pauperise people by having expert representation. That is why the Legal Aid Board is in place. The fees will be exactly the same for everyone.

In terms of funds, as soon as the wardship is extinguished, whatever funds are available to people or those who are in the process of having an award made to them, it will no longer be the responsibility of the courts to invest. I hope people would have enough people to surround them to give them the type of advice that is necessary in order to have secure investments rather than taking risky investments. Nobody will hold those funds other than the persons or their co-decision makers, assistants, families or whatever. I assume they will invest them, or not, as the case may be, in the way they wish. As with all investments, those investments are equally open to fluctuation.I think Senator Conway said on the last occasion that people put their money into blue-chip investments which turned out to be as vulnerable as anything else.