Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 420, 421, 422 and 423 together.

The Legal Aid Board is the statutory, independent body responsible for the provision of civil legal aid and advice to persons of modest means, in accordance with the provisions of the Civil Legal Aid Act 1995 and the Civil Legal Aid Regulations 1996 to 2021. Section 3(3) of the Act states that the Board shall, subject to the provisions of the Act, be independent in the exercise of its functions.

As the Deputy is aware, civil legal aid and advice is provided primarily through a network of law centres by solicitors employed by the Board. There are 34 full-time centres and dedicated units and three part-time law centres. The Board also operates 20 family mediation centres. Eight of the law centres and family mediation offices are co-located.

The Board also engages private solicitors to supplement the services provided by Board solicitors in certain areas of law on a case by case basis. These areas include District Court family law matters, Circuit Court judicial separation and divorce cases, international protection cases, and cases on foot of the Abhaile scheme.

A priority service is provided by the Board in certain cases, including cases involving domestic violence, child abduction, applications by the State to take children into care or under supervision, and cases that have statutory time limits close to expiry.

I am informed that the Board also delivers specialist services at the following locations, where it does not operate a waiting list: Law Centre Smithfield (International Protection, Human Trafficking and Child Abduction), Dolphin House (District Court Family Law and Mediation), Montague Court (Medical Negligence/Personal Injuries) and Chancery Street (Childcare).

The waiting times and numbers for first consultation appointments are published on a regular basis on the website of the Legal Aid Board (www.legalaidboard.ie).

To be of assistance to the Deputy, I have had enquiries made and the Legal Aid Board has provided the information in the below table, which sets out the maximum waiting time in weeks, for non-prioritised matters, as of 1 September 2023 for the various law centres.

It must be emphasised that this table provides a snapshot of waiting times at a particular point in time. Waiting times vary depending on demand and on the capacity of each law centre to offer appointments to new clients. I am informed that a lack of availability of private practitioners is impacting a number of law centres that currently have long waiting lists, along with solicitor turnover and other staff movement or absences which the Board is seeking to address. I am informed that where capacity permits, applications for civil legal aid are transferred between law centres to allow earlier first consultation appointments for applicants. I am further informed that the distribution of resources by the Board is similarly kept under constant review.

Table - Waiting times – 1 September 2023

Law Centre	Longest time a person is waiting (in weeks)	Nos. Waiting
Athlone	8	22
Blanchardstown	24	43
Castlebar	19	65
Cavan	6	23
Clondalkin	19	37
Cork Popes Quay	16	56
Cork South Mall	12	46
Dundalk	20	36
Ennis	7	14
Finglas	11	36
Galway Francis St	2	11
Galway Seville House	9	8
Jervis Street	16	50
Kilkenny	21	53
Letterkenny	7	32
Limerick	16	68
Longford	20	32
Monaghan	17	16
Navan	14	40
Nenagh	12	30
Newbridge	15	27
Portlaoise	20	43
Sligo	32	60
Smithfield	21	42
Tallaght	16	43
Tralee	15	20
Tullamore	0	0
Waterford	16	41
Wexford	7	24
Wicklow	15	37

I am informed that the Board employs a full time equivalent of approximately 540 staff.

As a statutory body, the Legal Aid Board has delegated sanction for the recruitment of its staff, subject to the necessary approvals.

I have been provided with the information contained in the below table by the Legal Aid Board, which sets out the average solicitor staffing by year per each law centre in FTE terms during the years 2018 – 2023 (1January – 31August).

Table – Average number of Solicitor Staff per Law Centre 2018 – 2023 YTD (1January – 31 August)

Law Centre	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Athlone	4.5	3.5	2.5	3.0	3.4	3.6
Blanchardstown	2.1	3.0	2.7	2.1	2.2	2.0
Castlebar	3.0	2.9	3.0	2.8	2.4	3.2
Cavan	2.0	2.0	1.8	1.8	1.8	1.9
Chancery Street	3.0	3.0	2.7	0.0	2.3	1.6
Clondalkin	4.0	3.0	2.9	3.1	2.1	2.0
Cork Popes Quay	7.2	7.6	6.1	4.1	6.4	7.5
Cork South Mall	6.9	6.3	6.4	6.0	6.2	7.8
Dundalk	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.1	2.0	2.7
Ennis	2.5	2.7	2.7	2.8	3.0	3.6
Finglas	3.0	3.0	2.6	2.2	2.9	4.3
Galway Francis St	5.8	4.2	3.5	3.6	4.2	4.2
Galway Seville House	4.0	6.0	5.0	5.3	5.8	5.9
Jervis Street	7.0	4.6	5.2	5.2	5.7	5.9
Kilkenny	4.0	4.2	3.2	3.7	4.3	4.2
Letterkenny	3.6	3.6	3.3	3.0	2.7	2.8
Limerick	4.0	4.0	4.0	3.9	4.2	4.3
Longford	2.0	4.0	2.8	2.9	2.1	2.9
Minceir Traveller Legal Support Service	N/A	N/A	N/A	1.0	0.9	0.9
Monaghan	3.0	2.7	2.7	2.6	2.7	2.5
Montague Court	2.0	3.7	0.0	5.8	3.5	3.2
Navan	2.8	2.2	1.8	3.0	3.0	3.1
Nenagh	3.8	4.0	3.3	3.8	3.7	4.6
Newbridge	4.0	4.0	3.6	3.3	2.8	3.0
Portlaoise	3.2	3.0	2.8	2.8	2.8	3.1
Sligo	2.0	2.0	2.2	3.0	3.0	3.0
Smithfield	12.9	11.8	11.4	7.7	10.5	10.8
Tallaght	3.8	3.6	3.1	2.8	2.1	2.3
Tralee	4.6	4.0	3.7	3.8	4.0	4.7
Tullamore	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	1.3
Waterford	2.8	2.8	3.0	2.5	2.4	3.0
Wexford	3.5	3.3	3.3	3.0	3.1	3.6
Wicklow	3.4	3.2	2.5	3.4	3.3	3.5

The Legal Aid Board has also provided the following table, which details the number of applications for civil legal aid services received at each of the Board’s law centres during the years 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 (1 January - 31 August).

As the Deputy may be aware, applicants may apply for legal services to any law centre and are not bound to apply to a law centre in their county of residence. Furthermore, I am informed by the Legal Aid Board that, in a case where two parties to a dispute seek the services of the Board at one law centre, one party will be required to engage with a different law centre, which may be in a neighbouring county.

Table – Number of Applications 2018 – 2023 YTD (1January – 31 August)

Law Centre	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Athlone	538	478	385	318	297	257
Blanchardstown	201	234	205	238	180	113
Castlebar	281	318	265	197	295	205
Cavan	240	259	217	252	225	170
Chancery Street	124	119	133	142	179	129
Clondalkin	227	221	200	190	115	110
Cork Popes Quay	1,061	1,043	784	704	1,469	898
Cork South Mall	750	799	609	603	592	383
Dolphin house	2,266	1,828	1,788	2,457	2,659	1,734
Dundalk	302	304	279	315	405	323
Ennis	381	402	336	368	350	251
Finglas	213	163	142	143	284	177
Galway Francis St	634	619	521	532	556	419
Galway Seville House	475	432	282	281	957	986
Jervis Street	449	353	286	307	268	187
Kilkenny	621	550	528	625	487	320
Letterkenny	544	539	382	371	412	299
Limerick	862	896	713	730	809	569
Longford	390	421	438	415	340	253
Minceir Traveller Legal Support Service	N/A	N/A	N/A	7	28	15
Monaghan	365	351	273	300	245	152
Montague Court	192	202	193	216	237	159
Navan	530	583	454	495	490	355
Nenagh	523	510	405	388	377	289
Newbridge	466	464	395	377	308	223
Portlaoise	533	482	428	362	361	270
Sligo	392	364	272	273	285	166
Smithfield	1,951	2,404	1,267	1,520	5,494	5,611
Tallaght	275	237	198	222	161	124
Tralee	565	562	529	534	531	409
Tullamore	335	323	228	197	236	70
Waterford	468	482	399	382	368	287
Wexford	531	508	424	406	367	262
Wicklow	563	547	425	424	338	284
Total	18,248	17,997	14,383	15,291	20,705	16,459

Funding by my Department for the Legal Aid Board for 2023 amounts to €53.060 million, which is a 10% increase on the organisation’s funding allocation for the previous year. An additional €500, 000 was provided to the Board in June 2023 to support the recruitment of additional staff to ensure the needs of clients seeking services in respect of international protection applications are met. It is clear, therefore, that the government has sanctioned extra resources for the Legal Aid Board, designed to increase its ability to support its clients.

The matter of resource allocation is an operational matter for the Legal Aid Board which is independent in its functions. I can however assure the Deputy that, as part of ongoing governance arrangements, officials in my Department engage regularly with the Board in relation to resourcing matters.

I am informed by the Board that it is not possible to extract and isolate the total cost of civil legal aid in any one office/county in a given year, as it would be necessary to devise a basis on which to attribute, to each county, all expenditure incurred by the Board centrally.

Funding provided to the Legal Aid Board by my Department for the years 2019-2023 is set out in the following table.

Funding by the Department of the Legal Aid Board by Year

Year	Funding Allocated €m
2023	€53,060,000
2022	€47,900,000
2021	€44,575,000
2020	€42,207,000
2019	€40,796,000