I would like to thank Deputy Mulherin for providing me with the opportunity to debate this matter.
Civil Legal Aid
The Legal Aid Board, which comes under the remit of my Department, is an independent, publicly funded organisation. It has been in existence since 1979 and was set up as a statutory body on foot of the Civil Legal Aid Act 1995. The Board's objective is to provide a professional, efficient, cost-effective and accessible legal aid and advice service.
The Board has an executive management structure primarily located at its Head Office in Cahirciveen, Co. Kerry and also at an office in Mount Street, Dublin. Most importantly the Board also has thirty three full time law centres located throughout the country, including seven such centres which are located in Dublin.
The Board also operates a Private Practitioner Service, a Refugee Documentation Service and a library service in Montague Lane, Dublin. In addition, the functions of the Legal Aid Board were recently extended to include a family mediation service.
The past three or four years have seen a considerable increase in demand to the Board for legal services. This increase in demand has coincided with the downturn in the economy and greater pressure on Departments and their agencies to provide services from reduced financial resources.
Evidence internationally has pointed towards a greater need for access to legal services in areas such as family law, debt and employment during times of economic stress and Ireland appears no different in this regard. This has inevitably created huge pressures for the Legal Aid Board and its capacity to deliver legal services within a reasonable period of time.
In 2007, just over 10,150 persons sought legal services from the Board in relation to general civil, non-asylum, matters. This figure increased to 17,175 in 2010 while the number of applicants in the first six months of this year was almost equal to the total number for the twelve months of 2007.
The Board has been proactive with regard to the provision of services at this time of increasing demand in a resource constrained environment. In particular the Board has prioritised certain types of cases for immediate or near immediate service. Priority cases include those where there are allegations of violence, child custody matters and where statutory deadlines are fast approaching when clients make their first contact with law centres. These comprise some 15% of all applications. A considerable number of other applications are referred speedily to private practitioners. Thus up to 40% of all cases receive a very speedy service.
The budget for civil legal aid for 2012 is being maintained at the same level as for this year. While the Board has been funded by way of a separate grant for the purpose of providing services in relation to the asylum process, I have now incorporated that funding into the Board’s grant-in-aid. This should give the Board greater flexibility in terms of how it uses its resources.
As the Deputy may be aware, I have also appointed a new Board this week. I am confident that the new Board members will all bring their considerable skills and expertise to the work of the Board and that their presence on the Board will ensure that it continues to operate as innovatively, efficiently and effectively as it has always done, with a view to ensuring that its resources are put to best effect for the benefit of those most in need of legal services.
I am aware that the Board provides legal services primarily through law centres located throughout the country. I am also acutely aware that because of their relatively small size, a retirement or maternity related absence can have a very big impact on the capacity to provide services. For this reason I have sanctioned a very limited exemption from the moratorium on public service recruitment allowing the Board to retain up to twelve staff members on short term contracts.
The Board has also been to the fore in making use of the Job-bridge scheme. It has retained a number of solicitors who are making a very valuable contribution to the Board’s work while at the same time gaining valuable experience that will assist them in the jobs market.
An initiative that the Board will be piloting early in 2012, is a somewhat different approach to the provision of legal services by way of an attempt to ensure that every applicant for legal aid gets an appointment with a solicitor within a period of three to four weeks. While the person may have to wait for a period of time if they want representation in court or further steps taken on their behalf, they will at least have had the benefit of sound legal advice in relation to their problem at an early stage.
I am aware that the Board has also taken steps to cut operating costs in order to try and maximise the resources that are available to deliver legal services. The Board is also, in taking a range of other measures, keeping all of its services under review with a view to ensuring that its resources are used as efficiently and effectively as possible.
In November of this year, I announced the formal integration of the Family Mediation Service with the Board and the functions of the Board have now been extended under Part 16 of the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2011 to include a family mediation service. I am confident that in time synergies can be achieved in relation to the delivery of State funded legal and mediation services in the family law area. Already a pilot mediation initiative is in place in the District Family Court in Dublin involving the Board’s mediation and legal services and also the Courts Service.
While it is clearly a difficult operating environment, I am confident that the Board is taking steps to ensure that persons most in need of its services get the benefit of those services as quickly as possible.Criminal Legal Aid
Turning to criminal legal aid, as the Deputy will be aware, the nature of this Scheme is that it is driven by the incidence of crime, detection rates and prosecution of cases through the courts system. This renders it a difficult area in which to anticipate and control costs but in the current circumstances it is essential to do everything possible to control and reduce expenditure across all areas of the criminal justice system, including criminal legal aid.
As the Deputy is aware, my Department is facing a situation where, despite previous measures taken, the criminal legal aid scheme will exceed this year’s estimated expenditure of €47m by €10m bringing the likely total cost this year to €57.5m. Moreover, the sum allocated for criminal legal aid for the year 2012 in the estimates announced in the recent Budget is again in the amount of €47m which requires savings of €10m to be found in 2012 Of necessity, a number of cost reduction measures were implemented during this year including a 10% reduction in the fees and rates payable to legal practitioners under the scheme. As with other sectors of the economy, the cumulative effect of reductions in fee rates paid under the scheme has been a source of deep concern amongst practitioners about the level of cuts and the financial implications for firms and their employees but at this point there is no area of our society that is not feeling the effects of reduced incomes and the difficult economic climate. The action last week by a group of criminal lawyers in withdrawing their services from vulnerable clients is absolutely deplorable in this context.
My Department continues its efforts to identify savings and, in this context, the Task Force on Cost Reductions on Criminal Legal Aid which I established to identify any structural changes necessary within the courts system to achieve cost reductions in the medium to longer term, has reported to me and identified a number of initiatives which have the potential to reduce costs and increase efficiencies not just on criminal legal aid but for other parts of the Justice sector such as An Garda Síochána and the Irish Prison Service. I have instructed my officials to move to implement these initiatives, where possible, by end 2012 and to ensure that any measures that require, for example, legislative change are prioritised. In addition, I am hopeful that integrated data collection systems can be developed to track the total cost of an individual case which would in turn allow other cost saving measures to be developed.
The Deputy should also be aware that in addition to the cost reduction measures I will also be publishing in 2012 a new Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Amendment Bill which will, amongst other measures, include a provision to transfer responsibility for the management and administration of criminal legal aid from the Department to the Legal Aid Board. The Board will bring its own experience in managing budgets in the civil area to the administration of the criminal scheme.
However, it should be remembered that there are significant differences, not least because there is a Constitutional right to legal aid in criminal cases – which was established in 1976 in the State (Healy) v O’Donoghue and reiterated in many judgments since.
I can appreciate that there is a view that charging a small application fee might deter some applicants from availing of the scheme. However, if any action were to be taken to deprive a person who is otherwise entitled to avail of legal aid of their right to such aid and consequently their legal representation, that action would be unconstitutional and contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Detailed consideration of the different circumstances of each case would be required which could potentially be expensive to administer. A waiver system would have to be included. Notwithstanding this, the recent Task Force recommended that the feasibility of introducing an application fee should be considered further from a Constitutional, administrative and financial perspective. An examination will be undertaken by my Department in consultation with the Legal Aid Board and the Attorney General’s office which is expected to be completed during the second half of 2012.