Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 8 May 2013
152. Deputy Seán Kyne asked the Minister for Justice and Equality if additional resources will be made available to the Legal Aid Board to enhance the support, advice and information available to persons in financial difficulties such as mortgage arrears. [21817/13]
Amharc ar fhreagraI wish to inform the Deputy that 16,870 applications were made to the Legal Aid Board's general law centres during 2012. This compared with 18,727 applications in 2011 which was a decrease of approximately 10%. Overall however, there has been a significant increase in demand for civil legal aid services in recent years, as the number of applications in 2006 was 9,689 which the Deputy will note from last year's figure was almost 74% ahead of the demand six years earlier. On the asylum side the trend has been consistently downwards for a number of years. Last year there were 725 new applications to the Board for asylum related matters. This compares to a figure of 979 in 2011 and 2,980 in 2006. Adjusting the numbers overall there were 17,595 new applications in 2012 compared to 19,706 in 2011 and 12,669 in 2006. The drop in demand in 2012 on 2011 was just under 11% while demand in 2012 was still 39% ahead of what it was six years previously. From this year we are recording a single figure for demand for services.
Having regard to the significantly increased demand for services from the Legal Aid Board in recent years, it was decided to maintain the Board's grant-in-aid for 2013 at the same level as last year. The Board, in common with all public service organisations, has to manage the delivery of their services in the most cost effective and efficient manner possible having regard to ongoing pressure on the public finances. Notwithstanding the pressures on resources, I have further supported the Board by approving exemptions from the moratorium to enable the organisation to recruit front-line staff for direct service delivery. The Public Appointments Service is currently running a solicitor recruitment competition for the Board from which appointments, both temporary and permanent, will be made in the coming months.
The Deputy should also note that prior to 2012 the Board received a grant-in-aid for its general civil legal aid services and a separate grant for its asylum services. The 2012 allocation was however, a single grant-in-aid which included funding in respect of the Family Mediation Service, for which the Board assumed responsibility in late 2011. This has facilitated the integration of the asylum area into the general service delivery area with consequent efficiencies in terms of use of resources. I am confident that this measure combined with the extra staffing resources will meet the demands that are placed on the civil legal aid system generally and will not be specific to any particular problem type.
