Irish Examiner View: Our legal aid safety net is threadbare

Qualification limits for legal aid should be changed to reflect 2020 costs rather than those that applied 2006.

The Legal Aid Board has warned as eligibility criteria for its services has not changed in 14 years, a situation that might drive some of those in of the scheme's support into  "poverty traps".

Any society worthy of the description understands that safety nets are needed to try to protect citizens at their moment of difficulty. 

That assertion stands even if some of those nets can be targets for cliched, less-than-generous criticism.

Legal aid services occasionally fall into that category. They can be an all-too-easy target for sanctimony and anger. That quirk that says a lot more about the scheme's critics than it does about the scheme itself. 

Like many programmes it is occasionally misused or abused but it can also be a decisive, positive presence in a troubled life.

Despite that, the Legal Aid Board has warned as eligibility criteria for its services has not changed in 14 years, a situation that might drive some of those in of the scheme's support into  "poverty traps". LAB chairperson Philip O'Leary also warned that the numbers waiting for legal services at the end of last year had increased to 2,019 from 1,754 12 months earlier.

He also pointed out that the majority who sought support were involved in family issues, that most distressing reality for so many people.

It may, in time and if there is a real will, be possible to streamline these important services but in the interim qualification limits should be changed to reflect 2020 costs rather than those that applied 2006. 

If that is not done we are just paying lip-service to the idea of legal aid schemes.