Legal Aid
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-14
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Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South

I also have to take into account that the number of criminal cases in the District Court has decreased. Notwithstanding that, however, expenditure on criminal legal aid in the District Court has nearly doubled, from €19 million in 2015 to €37 million in 2024, despite the number of cases having decreased.
The review I looked at identified a series of structural issues in the administration of justice in the criminal legal aid scheme. For example, payment per appearance incentivises additional adjournments. I think this is just clearly the case. If we compare cases in the District Court that are not funded by criminal legal aid to those that are, we can see that there are many more adjournments in the latter context. Additionally, multiple certificates granted for related cases increase costs and complexity, multiple solicitors are assigned in the same firm for related charges and a highly complex payment processing system creates a significant administrative burden. I would not introduce this scheme if I thought it was going to undermine the rights of individuals to a fair defence.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:56+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-14