Legal Aid Dail Éireann — 2026-09-16 ============================================================ Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South I thank the Deputy for putting down this important Topical Issue. Of course, I am here to answer it. I am the Minister for justice, and it is a very important issue that he has raised. I have great respect for not just solicitors and barristers, but for everyone who operates within the legal system. I worked as a barrister for 30 years. On every case I did, I worked with solicitors, so I am fully aware of the central role played by the legal profession in the effective administration of justice and that is particularly so in the area of administration of criminal justice. To answer the question the Deputy put directly to me, I fully accept that the criminal legal aid scheme is fundamental to upholding the constitutional and human right to a legal defence. I want the Deputy to know as well that the only reason I have introduced these reforms is to try to make the system more effective and efficient while ensuring that those accused of crimes are provided with legal representation. The reform of the criminal legal aid fee structure in the District Court does not affect the ability of solicitors to engage in criminal legal aid work. The changes I have introduced are changes to the payment structure in the District Court but the advantage of having a forum such as this is that I am able to get across other aspects that do not get much attention. On 1 July, I introduced an 8% increase for practitioners who are operating in the criminal legal aid payment area and that is for practitioners in the Circuit Criminal Court, Central Criminal Court and the appeal courts. This represents the total restoration of the criminal legal aid fees that were cut under FEMPI and that had not been reinstated by previous Ministers, but that I reinstated. In terms of where we are at present, I accept that there are different issues in different parts of the country. Dublin is problematic, but the Deputy has to accept that in other parts of the country, the scheme has been accepted by solicitors. More than 600 solicitors remain on the criminal legal aid panel as criminal cases continue to be dealt with in the courts and, just as a sign of it, 24 solicitors who resigned from the panel have reapplied to be reinstated and have been reinstated to the panel. Since 1 July when the new system came in, approximately 1,430 new certificates for legal aid in the District Court have issued. Under this system, for cases in the District Court, regardless of the number of appearances, a set fee of €520 was payable to solicitors, replacing the appearance-based sliding scale fee. The structure provides for a full separate set fee for each defendant in court on a given day and removes the link between payments and the number of appearances or legal aid certificates granted. One of the factors we have to look at, and the Deputy is an intelligent person who looks at data, is that the volume of cases in the District Court has decreased in recent years, yet expenditure on legal aid in the District Court has more than doubled from €19 million in 2015 to €41 million in 2025. It was for that reason that the Department conducted the review of 350,000 District Court cases that took place in 2022 and 2023. That review established that when there is criminal legal aid, those cases take, on average, 313 days in the District Court and without it, 133 days, so while cases with criminal legal aid took significantly longer than those without, the outcomes were similar. The reforms aim to address the structural issues identified during this review, such as excessive adjournments resulting from the payment per appearance model, and to deliver a reformed criminal legal aid system that works for everyone. I am not suggesting that the Deputy is solely focusing on the interests of solicitors but my priority when I look at this is what is in the best interests of court users and the public, When it comes to trying to introduce reforms and efficiencies in the District Court, I have to look at the payment structure that I have put in place. If that structure is incentivising adjournments and delays, I am responsible for that and I have to do something about it. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-16/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-16