Deputy Spring gave me notice of his intention to raise on the Adjournment the subject matter of the many legal aid centres which are closed and the difficulty in getting an appointment in some that are open.
Adjournment Debate. - Legal Aid Centres.
I thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for giving me the opportunity of raising the issue in relation to the legal aid board centres, both in the city of Dublin and throughout the country. The reality is that there is now chaos in the provision of legal aid services. It takes at least three months to secure an appointment at a legal aid centre outside of Dublin, and in the city of Dublin, as I understand it, the position is even worse. In many of the centres the doors are effectively closed because the centres cannot cope with the volume of business.
The crisis in funding and staffing which has gripped the legal aid system has led to a point where the system is on the verge of collapse. To make matters worse the centres which are half operational are expecting, and trying to plan for, an expected 25 per cent increase in clientele as a result of the Judicial Separation Act. For hundreds of families the availability of new legal remedies, under this Act, will simply not be open to them. Families under stress will find that the months spent queueing for an appointment will, indeed, add to and exacerbate the difficulties with which they are living.
The Labour Party repeatedly warned during the Dáil debates on the Judicial Separation Bill that it would be essential to allow for a District Court jurisdiction if the legislation was to be of value. Both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael consistently refused to make any concession on this point. The immediate predecessor of the Minister for Justice promised in the Dáil during the discussions on that Bill that he would seek an extra allocation for free legal aid to enable the legal aid centres to cope with the obvious increase in demand and in pressure that would be generated by the Bill. I should like to say to the Minister for Justice that he must now deliver on that promise made by his predecessor. I would also say that our legal aid system has undergone a period of crisis under the Finana Fáil administration and there are signs, as matters stand at present, that it will get worse. The essential reason is that the Government does not particularly care about the provision of a free legal aid service.
There has been little or no increase in funding over the last number of years. In fact, in the 1988 Estimates for the Office of the Minister for Justice there was a reduction of 1 per cent in the grant-in-aid for the Legal Aid Board. This is at a time when the budgets of State legal agencies, such as the Office of the Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecutions, will be increased by 7 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.
The four new centres which were opened in 1984 are threatened with closure as there has been no provision made for Exchequer funding for these centres. The centres at Tralee, Athlone and Tallaght and the second centre in Cork were opened and financed with moneys which are now virtually exhausted and no provision has been made by way of Exchequer funding to substitute for this money.
I would also add, from a practical point of view, in relation to the running of a rural legal aid office, with which I am familiar in the town of Tralee, that the likelihood is that the solicitor in the office will have to deal with courts within and up to a 50-mile radius. In that centre there is one solicitor and one member of a clerical staff. Quite often the solicitor will have to attend court on an emergency basis: it can be in County Clare or indeed in West Limerick. This, in effect, means that all his appointments for that day have to be postponed when it is already taking up to three months to get an appointment. It is a ludicrous situation whereby all the work load for that day has to be cancelled because of the failure of the Government to appoint, in this case, a second solicitor or even a temporary solicitor to help to cope with these situations.
The Legal Aid Board are confronted with major difficulties. I would like if the Minister of State, who is standing in for his colleague, the Minister for Justice, would be able to tell me that as of tomorrow morning, if it has not been happening already, action will be taken to bring some help and some comfort to the people who need legal aid. There is a veritable crisis in the provision of civil legal aid and it seems certain that some centres throughout the country will have to be closed down if more money is not provided to back up the service generally. To underline the full impact, I emphasise that certain centres have had to close their doors for months on end to catch up on the backlog of work which has been accumulating.
Even when the centres are open, as I know from my experience in Tralee, people still cannot get appointments. Most often appointments are needed to deal with emergency family problems concerning matters such as the custody of children. A High Court Judge remarked recently in regard to such a case that legal aid was not available despite the urgent necessity of a woman looking for custody of her children. Obviously if something is not done this will have serious effects. When people are looking for an appointment proceedings have frequently been initiated already. People need to be able to respond by way of legal representation in such proceedings. Quite often barring proceedings have to be adjourned or delayed to allow for legal representation. As everyone knows, justice delayed is justice denied.
In the current Book of Estimates an additional 24 per cent is being provided in the allocation for free legal aid. This provision is too late. By then the crisis will be so severe that people working within the service will never catch up on the problem that now face them. I would ask the Minister of State to convey to the Minister for Justice that something must be done immediately because of the grave problems which many people, most often the weakest members of society, are facing due to their inability to gain access to the legal aid service.
The introduction of the scheme of civil legal aid and advice in 1979-88 delivered on a commitment by the Government which went as far back as 1974 with the establishment of the Pringle committee on legal aid. Many of the rules in the scheme are, despite claims to the contrary, in line with the recommendations contained in the Pringle report, published in 1977. The setting up of the scheme also enabled the State to fulfil its obligations as regards access to justice as a result of the decision of the European Court of Justice in the Airey case in 1979.
While I do not accept Deputy Spring's contention that the situation in the legal aid service is chaotic, unfortunately, the development of the scheme has not progressed as the Government would have wished. The onset of severe difficulties with the public finances has meant that the expansion of the scheme has had to be curtailed along with many other programmes with public expenditure implications. The need to get public expenditure not only under control but to reduce it was, and still remains, the paramount consideration.
There has been some expansion since the scheme started to operate in 1980. This was possible as a result of the windfall non-Exchequer moneys made available for various purposes, including civil legal aid, in the Funds of Suitors Act, 1984. That meant the opening of four additional law centres at Tallaght, Tralee, Cork and Athlone in the period 1985 to 1987. This brought the number of full time law centres operated by the board to 12 and enabled it to open further part-time law centres, bringing their number to 19 in all. Plans to open another four law centres at Dundalk, Portlaoise, Castlebar and Letterkenny had to be shelved regrettably because the funds of suitors available were only sufficient to finance the four additional centres already opened.
Furthermore, the public service staffing embargo brought with it further problems for the Legal Aid Board. Despite the filling of some posts on an exceptional basis which were lost because of the embargo, the board continued to suffer a reduction in their experienced staff, particularly among their solicitors.
Nevertheless, throughout these difficult years the board have endeavoured to meet the need for legal services. That meant and continues to mean dedication way above the norm by the board's staff, particularly their solicitors who are in the front line, so to speak.
I know that it is a feature of the scheme that some of the law centres have to close from time to time to new applications. When arrears of work are cleared, the centres re-open. In some instances, notably in Dublin, this period of closure can be protracted and, of course, this is very regrettable.
However, it needs to be stated that even while a law centre may be closed for a period to new cases, emergency cases, i.e. those cases which in the opinion of the board require immediate access to a solicitor, are dealt with as and when they arise. The type of cases in this category include those where there may be the immediate threat of violence to a spouse or children, or sexual abuse or where there is a danger that a child may be removed from the jurisdiction.
I do realise, nevertheless, that the scheme is under strain and that the visible signs of that are that more law centres are finding it difficult to cope with the demand for legal services. Neither have I any problem in accepting that the new remedies available under the Judicial Separation and Family Law Reform Bill, 1989, which is in force since 19 October last will place further demands on the board's resources.
It was for these precise reasons that I was able to get certain concessions for the board. It was not easy. As I have already stated, the allocation of resources of any particular State funded body must be considered in the light of the constraints which apply to all areas of public expenditure at present. Notwithstanding the difficult financial circumstances, I was able to get the necessary funding for the continued operation of the board's four law centres at Tallaght, Tralee, Cork and Athlone. This is the first time since their establishment that those centres will be funded directly from the Exchequer. Their funding from other non-Exchequer sources expires at the end of this year. I was also able to get approval for the board to recruit a substantial number of staff at both solicitor and administrative levels. The number of such extra staff is 20 and includes seven additional solicitors. The cost of these measures is in the region of £425,000 and brings the grant-in-aid available to the board in 1990 to £2.163 million, which is almost 25 per cent up on their figure for 1989.
It has been claimed that this increase of £425,000 is misleading since it will chiefly go to keep open centres already in existence though funded from non-Exchequer sources. The point I want to emphasise is that it is a real increase in the amount of taxpayers' money going to legal aid. Nothing can take from that and it is a concrete expression of the Government's concern.
I know that this does not go as far as the Legal Aid Board would have wished. There is no provision for extra law centres over and above the 12 now in operation and the board wanted more staff. However, I regard the measures as generous in the present circumstances. For the first time in recent years the board are actually getting an increase in their allocation, and a substantial one at that. My first priority in relation to the legal aid scheme is to get the existing service running reasonably smoothly again before any question of expansion is considered and the measures I have announced will assist in that aim. One of the main consequences of the recruitment of additional staff should be an improvement in the waiting periods to see a solicitor at law centres.
Of course I would like to come here and announce that the board could now open more law centres at several new locations, but I cannot. We can only provide for what we can afford at present. That is not to say that when the financial climate improves the position cannot change.
As regards the new remedies provided for in the Judicial Separation Act, I intend to keep the situation under review. If further measures are called for we may be able to make further provisions. The House can be assured that I, in line with what I have done since coming to office, will accord the greatest priority possible to meeting these requirements as speedily as financial resources permit.
The Dáil adjourned at 9 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 23 November 1989.