Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Today, 6 March, is part of Seachtain na Gaeilge but it is also the start of the Oatlands College, Stillorgan, transition year students' musical. I commend the boys who are taking part in it and their transition year colleagues from Rockford Manor, who were in this Chamber two weeks ago. I hope the three nights' performance go well.

This year is also the 50th anniversary of Ireland's membership of the European Union. There is a photographic exhibition in the National Centre for Contemporary Photography in Ireland in Dublin.It is on the female Members of the European Parliament, MEPs, just 26 of whom have represented Ireland, North and South, in the European Parliament. I am proud that a quarter of them were Fine Gael or European People's Party MEPs. The exhibition was opened by Ms Frances Fitzgerald last Thursday. It is well worth a visit in this anniversary year for Ireland, as a member of the European Union.

I also welcome the tremendously important announcement by the Minister for Justice, Deputy Simon Harris, that he intends to double the number of refuge spaces available to victims of domestic violence, both male and female. All of us in this House have argued for this for a long time and it is great to see action being taken on it. In Dún Laoghaire we have fought for a long time to get a refuge and there has been a real paucity of provision of domestic violence refuge places for people in the area. I look forward to progress on that issue, which goes hand in hand with our criminal justice system. All of us in this House have argued in favour of a robust system that makes sure those responsible for that most pervasive of crimes, domestic violence and the things associated with it, are held to account before our criminal courts. At the moment, there is a real problem with that because of the pay available to the barristers and solicitors who act in the courts in the context of criminal legal aid. That applies as much to the defence as it does to the prosecution because the two sets of fees are linked and are necessarily on a par all the time. There has never been a restoration of the rates for lawyers practising under the criminal legal aid scheme since they were reduced fairly significantly at the time of the financial crisis. The law is the only sector for which it has not been restored. This has led to hardship and to lawyers no longer practising in the area of criminal law. They tend to go to more lucrative areas. If we want that system to function, we must invest in the people who make it function. If we do not have people choosing to go into criminal law and practise in an area that is vital for the security of our citizens, the system will suffer and the victims will suffer as well. My understanding is that provision was made in the budget last year for the Department of Justice to make that change. The Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery, and Reform has to sign off on that and it is high time it did so. There is already talk of industrial action by lawyers, which is unprecedented. Let us not let it get that far. I ask for a debate on the provision of proper pay for people who do good and important work in the criminal courts.