Tributes paid to legal rights campaigner

THE National Women’s Council paid tribute to legal rights campaigner Josie Airey, who died on Monday after a long illness.

In 1979 Ms Airey won an landmark case in the European Court of Human Rights forcing the Government to provide free legal aid for people contesting civil cases.

“That decision will go down in legal history but also in women’s history as well,” said Grainne Healy, the chairwoman of the National Woman’s Council. “It took a huge amount of courage to do something like that in the 70s.”