'This may cause chaos': Cork solicitors to resign from aid scheme

Solicitor Joseph Cuddigan announced the proposed escalation of the action by solicitors at Cork District Court yesterday. File picture: Larry Cummins

Solicitors on the free legal aid scheme for criminal cases will resign from the panel en masse tomorrow if payment changes proposed by the minister for justice are signed into law.

Solicitor Joseph Cuddigan announced the proposed escalation of the action by solicitors at Cork District Court yesterday.

Currently, solicitors are paid a fee of approximately €240 for a first appearance for a client and about €60 for each subsequent sitting, but justice minister Jim O’Callaghan wants to replace this with a single payment regardless of the number of court appearances.

Mr O’Callaghan insists the new fee model will be “very generous” but will also remove “serious inefficiencies” in the District Court system, where spending on criminal legal aid has soared in recent years.

The single payment is expected to be between €455 and €582 per case.

Since the dispute began earlier this month, solicitors already assigned to cases have been appearing in court to say they are not in a position to act for their clients.

An escalation of the action is expected to lead to delays across the criminal justice system.

Books of evidence are already not being served for cases to be sent forward from the district court to the circuit court for trial, and some bail applications are also being made without legal representation.

From tomorrow, the solicitors will not appear at all in court for these cases.

Mr Cuddigan said: “Sadly, solicitors in Cork city on the criminal free legal aid panel — in the event of the minister for justice crossing the Rubicon and signing the statutory instrument putting his unilateral proposals into effect on Wednesday —we are all resigning from the panel en masse.

“This may cause chaos and turmoil, which we regret, but it is not a matter of our choosing.”

Judge Miriam Walsh said she was not commenting on the matter except to say that people had a right to take a position in a dispute as long as it was done in a peaceful manner.

At Cork Circuit Criminal Court, 25 cases were listed for sentencing yesterday, but they could not proceed.

Solicitor Aidan Desmond informed Judge Dermot Sheehan of the escalation of the solicitors’ action, with the withdrawal of solicitors from the criminal free legal aid panel.

Judge Sheehan said: “If they withdraw from the panel, then when the matter is resolved, they would be unable to take on new work.

“It is a mess, obviously, that we are in that position.”

The introduction of the new payment model has been strongly opposed by the Law Society, and across the country, thousands of District Court cases have been adjourned.