Philip O’Leary: Properly funded legal aid system is litmus test of democracy

Despite challenges ahead, 40 years of access to legal aid has helped remove barriers to justice for all our citizens, writes Philip O’Leary.

When then justice minister Gerry Collins appointed the first Legal Aid Board on December 21, 1979, he stressed the importance of the Scheme of Civil Legal Aid and Advice as an instrument by which the concept of equality before the law could be brought substantially nearer to realisation in practice.