Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-07
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Holly Cairns (SD), Cork South-West

I think everybody agrees that reform is needed. The point is that the Minister for justice's approach has been an absolute disaster. His review looked into 350,000 cases. He is repeatedly citing three cases. Three in 350,000 does not really stand up to scrutiny. In addition to that, his main argument for pointing the finger at solicitors is the number of adjournments, but there is no mechanism for recording the reason for adjournments. We all know that the majority of them come from the State's side. Why is he not introducing a mechanism to record the reason for adjournments and taking it from there? It simply does not make sense.
The final point I would make is that it has resulted in cases not being heard in their thousands. There are people who cannot access free legal aid, crucially. There are cases not being heard and there are victims who ultimately will not get justice. Where is this going to end? Is there anything other than a climb-down for the Minister at this point? What is the Government going to do now that it is in this situation? Will it accept that its approach has not worked and tell us what the next step will be?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-07/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-07