Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The criminal legal Bar has a greater proportion of women working in it than any other area of law. It is the most poorly paid of the legal sectors. There is a fundamental injustice in that and that women are left to the side to tolerate and take on whatever is going. The criminal Bar is fundamental to our Constitution. It is the place where heinous crimes and the standards of society and what is acceptable and unacceptable are tried. It is the place where people who may be accused in the wrong need good legal representation to ensure the State is not guilty of miscarriages of justice. We had a funeral last weekend of the last man hanged in the State, and it was a miscarriage of justice in that instance.

We need constant representation because the criminal courts are where a disproportionately high number of people from socially deprived areas are represented. The least we might do is to ensure that none of them are accused in the wrong. Just because they are from impoverished communities does not mean that they should fall prey to this. That is not being a do-gooder but abiding by the Constitution of our Republic and ensuring that no citizen is at risk of being accused in the wrong. It is ensuring that all citizens are protected under the criminal justice laws of our society and State. We need to ensure that crimes are prosecuted properly and with the full rigour of the law. It is also important that any of us who could be accused in the wrong in the morning has good legal representation.

I was called to the Bar in 2012. Of the 120 people who were called to the Bar that July, only two still practise criminal law. They are a man and a woman, so we at least have one of each. There is, however, an appalling injustice being done to the criminal Bar as a result of the failure to restore barristers' payments.