{"id":18344,"date":"2026-06-18T10:44:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T09:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/?p=18344"},"modified":"2026-06-18T10:44:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T09:44:30","slug":"justice-ministers-hatchet-job-on-criminal-legal-aid-will-cripple-the-legal-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/justice-ministers-hatchet-job-on-criminal-legal-aid-will-cripple-the-legal-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice Minister\u2019s hatchet job on criminal legal aid will cripple the legal system"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>The Justice Minister\u2019s handling of this fiasco has been unnecessarily divisive, combative and utterly cackhanded<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Justice Minister\u2019s proposed hatchet job on criminal legal aid will decimate it and cripple the legal system, according to Social Democrats justice spokesperson Gary Gannon.<\/p>\n<p>Deputy Gannon said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Justice Minister\u2019s proposed hatchet job on criminal legal aid, and the maligning of solicitors who provide that hugely important service, is despicable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn order to justify huge cuts to legal aid, the Department has selectively leaked a report, or parts of it, to the media \u2013 highlighting cases in which a minority of lawyers abused the system to gouge the State.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese outlier examples of abuse of the system are now being used as a pretext to justify the wholesale decimation of a critical component of our justice system.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt also amounts of a maligning of the reputations of the vast majority of criminal legal aid solicitors who do their work diligently, efficiently and fairly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are not scammers, gaming the system, as the Justice Minister has tried to intimate. They are providing an important public service that is vital to the administration of justice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo be clear, the administration of justice would grind to a halt in this country were it not for criminal legal aid solicitors \u2013 and the Justice Minister is about to learn that, as an increasing number around the country withdraw their services.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cReplacing the current appearance-based system of payments for a flat fee is unworkable, unfair and outrageous.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe government proposal is, no matter how much work is entailed, or how many appearances in court are required, solicitors would only be paid \u20ac455.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis, according to the Department, is an attempt to speed up cases and reduce the number of adjournments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, anyone who visits any District Court around the country will immediately see that it is usually the State that is to blame for cases being adjourned.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn many cases, court lists are too long and cases are adjourned because they are not reached; or Garda\u00ed fail to turn up at Court to give evidence; or the DPP has not decided what kind of charges to proffer against a defendant; or a book of evidence may not be ready; or a defendant doesn\u2019t turn up to court. None of this is the fault of solicitors and none of it is within their gift to change.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNobody is saying that the existing criminal legal aid scheme is perfect and of course any system of State payments should have clear controls and oversight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, taking a sledgehammer to the system, and making it unviable for solicitors to do criminal legal aid work, will have devastating consequences.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot just for the administration of justice \u2013 but for the victims of crime who want to see perpetrators face justice in a timely manner.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cReform of the criminal legal aid scheme should happen, but it must be reform that improves it \u2013 not undermines and damages it and the justice system.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Justice Minister\u2019s handling of this fiasco has been unnecessarily divisive, combative and utterly cackhanded.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe should defer the proposed introduction of this flat fee, which is scheduled to happen in less than two weeks, and urgently get into talks with the Law Society, who represent criminal legal aid solicitors.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Justice Minister\u2019s handling of this fiasco has been unnecessarily divisive, combative and utterly cackhanded The Justice Minister\u2019s proposed hatchet job on criminal legal aid will decimate it and cripple the legal system, according to Social Democrats justice spokesperson Gary Gannon. Deputy Gannon said: \u201cThe Justice Minister\u2019s proposed hatchet job on criminal legal aid, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11685,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[316,411,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gary-gannon","category-justice","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Justice Minister\u2019s hatchet job on criminal legal aid will cripple the legal system - Social Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/justice-ministers-hatchet-job-on-criminal-legal-aid-will-cripple-the-legal-system\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"ga_IE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Justice Minister\u2019s hatchet job on criminal legal aid will cripple the legal system - Social Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Justice Minister\u2019s handling of this fiasco has been unnecessarily divisive, combative and utterly cackhanded The Justice Minister\u2019s proposed hatchet job on criminal legal aid will decimate it and cripple the legal system, according to Social Democrats justice spokesperson Gary Gannon. 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