Gerry Adams
Ceist:580. Deputy Gerry Adams asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the funding which has been allocated to free legal aid services in each of the years 2011 to 2016 and to date in 2017 by county. [36446/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraWednesday, 26 July 2017
Ceisteanna (580)
Freagraí scríofa
Legal aid services are funded by my Department under both the Civil and Criminal Legal Aid schemes.
Civil Legal Aid
The Legal Aid Board, established under the Civil Legal Aid Act 1995, provides civil legal aid and advice to persons of limited means who cannot afford to pay a solicitor privately. The Legal Aid Board operates 31 full-time law centres and a number of part-time law centres in Ireland. The Board also provides mediation services in 15 offices around the country to help separating couples to negotiate their own agreement.
The majority of the Board's income consists of a grant received from the Department of Justice and Equality. This funding is used to provide the Board's services in all its offices across the country, as well as the support services provided to law centres centrally from the Board's head office. Therefore, it is not possible to extract and isolate the total cost of civil legal aid in any one office/county in a given year as it would be necessary to devise a basis on which to attribute, to each county, all expenditure incurred by the Board centrally. Complexities may also arise at local level with regard to the delivery of civil legal aid, for example a client living in County Limerick may choose to apply to Ennis Law Centre. Also, in a case where two parties to a dispute seek the services of the Board at one law centre, one party will be required to engage with a different law centre, which may be in a neighbouring county.
Criminal Legal Aid
The Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Act 1962, which is the primary legislation covering the operation of the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme, provides that free legal aid may be granted, in certain circumstances, for the defence of persons of insufficient means in criminal proceedings.
It is not possible to provide the cost of the scheme by county as the information is not readily available and could not be compiled on a county by county basis without disproportionate use of staff resources.
The annual funding provided by my Department in respect of civil and criminal legal aid is set out in the table below.
|
Year |
Civil Legal Aid €000 |
Criminal Legal Aid €000 |
|
2011 |
30,370 |
56,115 |
|
2012 |
32,922 |
50,534 |
|
2013 |
33,759 |
50,863 |
|
2014 |
32,574 |
49,890 |
|
2015 |
32,471 |
50,879 |
|
2016 |
36,188 |
52,998 |
|
2017 (January - June) |
19,470 |
28,118 |
|
Total |
217,754 |
339,397 |
I am happy to be able to inform the Deputy that the budget for Civil Legal Aid was maintained throughout the recession with an increase of 19% over the period in question, including over 10% year on year increase for both 2016 and 2017.