I thank the Chair. I am honoured to have been appointed by the Minister for Justice as chairperson of the Legal Aid Board and to be here today before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice. I will give a brief overview of my background. I began practising as a barrister in 1997 and became a senior counsel in 2022. My main areas of work in practice consist of public law work; and representing clients whose constitutional rights or their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights have not been protected.
Before I worked at the Bar, I lectured in constitutional law in the University of Galway and as a researcher in the Law Reform Commission. In my early years as a barrister, I taught family law in Trinity College Dublin and was engaged as legal adviser to the subcommittee of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Procedure and Privileges, drafting rules in relation to the exercise of compellability powers by those committees. I have published in my legal areas of interest and last year was the lead author of a report with a very long title, “A Report on the Intersection of the Criminal Justice, Private Family Law and Public Law Child Care Processes in Relation to Domestic and Sexual Violence”. That was co-commissioned by the Department of Justice and the National Women’s Council.
As members can see, many of the areas in which I practice overlap with those in which the Legal Aid Board provides legal services. Over the years in my practice, I have been delighted to work with it in many cases and to see first hand the quality of the work the board's staff provides to clients, even when the quantity of work is vast and sometimes almost unmanageable. It has been my consistent experience that by reason of the dedication of the staff, the quality of the work done is never compromised by the demands of the numbers turning up at the doors of the law centres and mediation offices.
It was through this exposure to the realities of life working in the Legal Aid Board that my commitment to the board developed and indeed my interest in being on the statutory board arose. Obviously, the Legal Aid Board provides a core public service that ensures access to justice in civil matters for many people on the margins of our society, who would not otherwise be able to have their voices heard in court, or their rights vindicated.
Ensuring access to justice is a fundamental obligation of our State as without it, the very many other rights guaranteed under our Constitution can have no meaning for people who cannot reach the courtroom when their rights are challenged or breached. That requires me to comment, with some concern, on what the Legal Aid Board sees as an unacceptably low ceiling of the disposable income threshold which we are obliged to apply, that of €18,000 per annum for persons seeking to qualify for legal aid. Despite all of the cost-of-living surges in recent years, that figure has not budged since 2006.
The Legal Aid Board is a statutory independent body responsible for, in the words of the parent Act, the Civil Legal Aid Act 1995, "the grant by the State of legal aid and advice to persons of insufficient means in civil cases" and also for mediation services in the State. Civil legal aid and advice is provided primarily through a network of law centres and solicitors employed by the board. We have 34 full-time and two part-time law centres. As far as family mediation services are concerned, we have ten full-time and nine part-time offices. Private solicitors are also engaged to supplement the services provided by board solicitors in certain areas of law and on a case-by-case basis.
What is my vision as chair of the Legal Aid Board? As chair of the board, I am determined that the Legal Aid Board should fulfil, and be facilitated in fulfilling, its statutory function to its clients to the highest possible standards. It is our job to ensure the clients get right of access to justice in civil matters, that that right is vindicated and that our clients get the same level of service as would a person of means who is able to afford the services of his or her legal team. We are not just about ensuring access to justice, but about ensuring equal access to justice.
On short- and medium-term priorities, in the months ahead, the statutory board, of which I am chair, will prioritise supporting our executive with its many and expanding tasks. These include its actions regarding the family justice strategy, planning the necessary changes required by the family courts Bill, promoting mediation in the justice sector and in communities, implementing the provisions of the Assisted Decision-Making Capacity Act 2015, and maintaining a system that offers the earliest legal advice to international protection applicants and continuing to monitor changes in that process.
At present, there are a number of interlinked challenges the organisation faces. First, in contrast to the criminal legal aid system, and indeed the civil legal aid system in many other jurisdictions, the Legal Aid Board is budget-led, rather than demand-led. While the State grant has been increasing in recent years, so too has the range of services for which the board is responsible, as well as the number of clients in the areas in which the board provides services. One such area is international protection, where, as members will be aware, numbers have risen significantly in recent years.
In 2023, the Legal Aid Board faced an increase in applications for international protection when 9,918 applications were received. This was a considerable increase on the 6,858 applications received in 2022, which itself was an increase of 368% on the 1,464 applications for legal aid received for international protection matters in 2021. Not to further bombast members with statistics but as of 31 March 2024, 2,750 applications for international protection services have been received by the board. That is approximately 41% of the overall number of applications received for legal services in the same period. Our concern is, and remains, to ensure a timely and appropriate legal response for each of these clients.
Nonetheless, recruitment challenges continue and create the risk that the organisation will not be able at all times to provide timely services to all of our clients, and not just those clients seeking international protection but those clients seeking our assistance in the various areas of law within our remit.
On the employment of solicitors and mediators, the board is subject to Government restrictions on what it can pay solicitors, including newly qualified solicitors. Our solicitors are paid less than their comparators in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions or in the Chief State Solicitor's Office. The reality is the market for lawyers is buoyant at the moment and has been for a number of years. The board has made and continues to make significant efforts to recruit, but the reality is it is difficult to hire solicitors willing to work in more expensive locations, such as Dublin, for the rates we can provide. As chair, my concern is that should this difficult situation persist, it may impact negatively on our ability to meet our clients' needs.
Likewise, the inadequacy of the fees payable to private solicitors for certain matters remains a concern and a risk to timely availability of services to clients. Given the workload of our staff in law centres and our difficulties in recruitment and retention, we are often greatly dependent on private practitioners who assist us in securing access to justice for qualifying clients. The simple reality is the current fee structure is not attracting solicitors to join board panels.
Finally, the Legal Aid Board’s ICT infrastructure and systems are in need of fundamental improvement. While that may seem a somewhat mundane matter unworthy of mention here today, the reality is it impedes our already overworked solicitors and administrative staff in their daily tasks of representing clients. For example, investment in a cloud-based management system is simply imperative. While our executive has devised a detailed ICT plan to address these challenges, the reality is that plan needs to be adequately resourced in order to bring it to fruition.
In conclusion, I alluded earlier to the lofty ideal of access to justice, which underlies everything the Legal Aid Board does. The challenges I have set out are the everyday issues which impact on our ability to make that lofty ideal into a reality for our ever-expanding client base. I am grateful to have been appointed to the very responsible role of chairperson and look forward to the challenges that will arise. I am happy to answer any questions to the extent that I can.
