Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, my colleague, neighbour and friend from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, who is here to deal with this matter. I am grateful to him for coming in because this is an important issue, namely the unwinding of cuts to criminal legal aid fees. It is not a secret that I am a criminal barrister and I still work in that sphere and receive criminal legal aid payments but I am not issuing this request out of self-interest. There is a sustained campaign by criminal barristers to deal with this issue because it is a serious issue for those practising criminal law.

There is a misconception out there that barristers all do very well and that they are all wealthy. It is a popular thing to say and certain media outlets love to refer to the Four Goldmines but that does not apply to criminal barristers. Crime does not pay in that sphere and we do not work in the Four Goldmines; we work in the Criminal Courts of Justice on Parkgate St., and in district and circuit courts throughout Ireland. This affects every county and community because the reality is that the amounts available to be paid under the criminal legal aid scheme were slashed at the time of the financial crisis in this country by between 30% and 50%, depending on the nature of the payment. It was a significant reduction in the pay available to people practising in the area of crime. We should bear in mind that they were already the worst-paid lawyers in the system, including solicitors, and then their pay was cut by that amount. Everybody took that pain at the time that it was necessary during the financial crisis and they dealt with it. Civil servants, healthcare workers and people providing professional services also took that cut; it was across the board. Yet here we are ten, 11 and 12 years later and the only people for whom pay has not been reinstated is those practising in criminal law, including solicitors and barristers. Their fees remain at the level they were cut to after the financial emergency.

It does not make sense because the State gets incredibly good value from the practitioners in this area. They are all self-employed and none of them works for the State. The State, therefore, does not have to pay them sick leave, maternity benefit, pension rights, PRSI and all the other benefits that come with having employees. The State does not have to pay that; they pay it themselves and they pay for their offices. When we are compared with other jurisdictions around the world, we are incredibly good value for the taxpayer. A number of reports have compared us with other common law jurisdictions in Europe and the most recent one in 2018 shows that the cost of legal aid per head of population was €18.40. Each person in Ireland contributed €18.40 to the cost of having a legal aid system that provides for those who cannot provide for themselves in legal defence. When compared with the figures in England and Wales, for example, our neighbouring jurisdiction, it is €38.14, more than double what it is in this jurisdiction, while in Northern Ireland, it is €73.50. The State gets excellent value and yet it has turned its back on those defending people within our criminal justice system and it refuses, inexplicably, to reinstate that fee.

There is a consequence coming down the road, and people are abandoning criminal law. Although it may not be the case yet that there are no lawyers to do the work of criminal defence, that will happen. It happened to a great extent in the 1980s and it will happen again if the State does not recognise that the only fair thing to do is not to give a big payment out to these people but to reinstate the rates of pay available to them for work in the criminal courts.