Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 10 Oct 2000

Vol. 523 No. 4

Adjournment Debate. - Free Legal Aid.

Mr. Browne

(Carlow-Kilkenny): Táim an-bhíoch gur tugadh deis dom an fhadhb seo a phlé anseo anocht.

I must express my disappointment that the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government, for the third time this evening, is representing the Minister to whose Department a matter applies. However, I accept that Ministers are very busy. Under the system we use for matters taken on the Adjournment, the Minister of State will have in his possession a script written by a civil servant this afternoon. I hope I am a Member of the Dáil when this sytem is changed and a more realistic one put in its place.

I raise the absence of a full-time solicitor in the Carlow legal aid centre. There is no legal aid service in Carlow. The county is linked with Kilkenny and while that forms a very successful political unit it is not successful with regard to legal aid. We are visited by an overworked solicitor from Kilkenny twice every month – not once a week but two days every month. That is classed as a legal aid service.

I have no doubt the Minister of State's script will compare this with similar delays in other parts of the country and claim that Carlow is no worse than other places. Were it not for the fact that five solicitors give their time freely and free of charge to help people who need legal advice the queue would be three or four times longer. Furthermore, when people who need legal aid discover that a solicitor visits the centre only twice a month they somehow manage to consult a solicitor privately. There is no service in Carlow. The delay is minimised only for the reasons I have just given.

Despite the lack of service the centre had 333 queries between January and July 2000. During all of 1999 there were 400. The number of queries is rising. This may be explained by the fact that Carlow is the fastest growing centre of population outside Dublin as was shown in a recent engineers' association report. A fast growing centre of population will always have problems.

I hope the Minister of State's script includes a definite commitment to provide a legal aid service to Carlow. This means providing a full-time solicitor. A visit by a solicitor twice a month is not a service. I look forward with hope to the Minister of State's reply.

Mr. D. Wallace

On behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, who could not be here tonight, I thank the Deputy for raising this matter and for giving me the opportunity to update the House in relation to this issue.

Under section 30 of the Civil Legal Aid Act, 1995, responsibility for determining how legal services should be provided is solely a matter for the Legal Aid Board. Its responsibility in this regard includes decisions in relation to the location of law centres. The Legal Aid Board already operates a part-time law centre in Carlow. This centre provides services on the first and third Fridays of every month and is located in St. Catherine's social services centre. The centre is operated by the staff of the law centre in Kilkenny, which includes two solicitors.

I understand from the Legal Aid Board that at the end of September the numbers of persons on the waiting lists in Carlow and Kilkenny were 70 and 81, respectively, while the numbers of applications for legal services at Carlow and Kilkenny during the period 1997 to date were 551 and 933, respectively.

In relation to those applicants waiting for legal services, the Legal Aid Board operates a procedure whereby priority is accorded to certain categories of cases over others, for example, domestic violence, child care, child abduction and cases where there are time limits. In these cases the application is dealt with immediately.

In order to combat the problems being experienced in relation to waiting times in law centres the Minster made additional resources available to the Legal Aid Board this year when he increased the allocation of grant-in-aid to £12.899 million. This represents an increase of 8% on the 1999 allocation.

In addition, the board operates a private practitioner scheme and this was launched on a nationwide basis earlier this year. This scheme will assist the board in its efforts to provide a service to all applicants within a reasonable period. It provides a complementary legal service to that provided from law centres, particularly for certain family law matters in the District Court, namely, domestic violence, maintenance and custody/ access.

Private practitioners are used in cases of geographical remoteness, conflict of interest cases and in cases where the exigencies of the law centre service so require. Applicants are given the option of either going to a private solicitor of their choice from the panel of private practitioners or having their names added to the waiting list at the law centre. This scheme, while increasing the services provided by the board, should also enable law centres to devote more resources to non-District Court matters and should help to reduce waiting times in law centes, including the Carlow part-time centre.

Furthermore, I understand from the Legal Aid Board that a review of practices and procedures in law centres is being undertaken to seek to improve efficiency. The board considers that this review, together with the extension of the private practitioners scheme, will lead to an increase in the throughput of cases and the provision of services to a greater number of persons. Where waiting times, for whatever reason, become excessive the position is examined by the board with a view to taking remedial action.

I am informed by the board that it is reviewing the allocation of the additional staff resources obtained for the board earlier this year and the respective needs of the different law centres will be considered so that the board can maximise the use of resources made available to it. In this regard the possibility of assigning an additional solicitor to Kilkenny, from where the services to Carlow is provided, will be kept under active review.

The Dáil adjourned at 9.10 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 11 October 2000.