The Law Society of Ireland welcomes recent engagement with the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration on the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme and looks forward to working together to resolve outstanding issues to ensure the new Scheme works effectively in practice.

In a letter to the Minister on 31 July, Law Society President Rosemarie Loftus acknowledged several positive developments arising from recent correspondence and a meeting held on 27 July. This includes the splitting of fees into two instalments and a commitment to ongoing engagement with the profession as the new Scheme beds in.

The Criminal Law Committee of the Law Society held a meeting with practitioners yesterday, attended by 250 practitioners in criminal law to discuss the recent changes and clarifications.

While practitioners acknowledged some progress made, the feedback received from criminal law solicitors nationwide was that the changes made in recent days do not, on their own, address the significant practical concerns they have with the Scheme introduced on 1 July, 2026.

The feedback we have received is that most practitioners would likely participate in the Scheme on an interim basis if a small number of targeted corrections and adjustments were made while the broader review is undertaken.

Two critical issues requiring targeted adjustments are:

Separate and distinct cases

The first concerns the treatment of separate and distinct criminal cases that happen, for efficiency, to be before the court on the same day.

A solicitor instructed on multiple separate cases is not dealing with a single body of evidence or a single set of allegations or a single Garda or a single expert witness. Each matter requires separate preparation, consultation with the client, examination of evidence, legal analysis, and representation, with each case involving different complainants, different witnesses, different Garda investigations, different CCTV footage, separate and distinct disclosure obligations, separate and distinct legal issues and different factual circumstances.

For example, a defendant could be charged with a burglary that was alleged to have taken place in Dun Laoghaire in February, an assault that was alleged to have taken place in Swords in April, and a public order incident that was alleged to have taken place on Grafton Street in June.

These cases involve entirely separate and distinct locations, times and victims; yet they could be brought against the one defendant on the one day.

Under the current Scheme these cases would result in just one Legal Aid Certificate for €520 if commenced on the same date, whereas three Legal Aid Certificates would issue if these three cases commenced on separate dates. The workload involved in both scenarios is the same. The workload involved does not diminish or disappear merely because the cases happen to be listed before the same judge on the same day.

Complex cases of extended duration

The second issue concerns cases of extended duration. There are known cases where the length of proceedings, due to the number of court appearances, is considerably longer.

Typically, these cases involve children, people with mental health issues and people remanded in custody by judges.

For cases involving children, the court exercises a more supervisory, rehabilitative type role. There is often multi-disciplinary involvement from different state bodies including Tusla, the Probation Service, and the Garda Youth Diversion Programme.

For cases involving people with mental health or capacity issues, questions of fitness to plead can arise. In such circumstances, numerous adjournments are necessary to await psychiatric reports or due to delays in securing a bed in an appropriate care facility.

In cases where an accused is remanded in custody and unfit to plead, the law dictates that the maximum adjournment is for two weeks – leading to many appearances before the courts.

Where defendants are remanded in custody by judges they are entitled by law to return to court every two weeks and may consent to extend that to every four weeks. There can be significant delays in these cases, such as waiting for a certificate of analysis in drug cases, waiting on directions from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), or delays in obtaining books of evidence.

These cases almost always require additional time, additional appearances and patient, repeated engagement with a solicitor - none of which is factored into the new Scheme.

Under the new Scheme, a solicitor who represents someone on court for a non-complex matter will be paid the same as someone who represents a troubled child in a complex case involving 20+ court appearances. Adjournments in these cases are not discretionary. They are driven by statutory and welfare obligations. In practical terms, this equates to an average of €26 per appearance before any account is taken of the substantial work carried out outside court (see notes to editor below).

The President of the Law Society, Rosemarie Loftus, said:

"The Law Society and solicitors have been calling for reform of the Criminal Legal Aid system for years, but any new model must be practical, evidence-based, and capable of protecting the constitutional rights of accused people, while remaining sustainable for those who provide publicly funded legal representation. The Law Society believes there are two issues in particular which remain critical.

The clear feedback we have received from practitioners is that these two adjustments would alleviate the principal remaining concerns regarding the operation of the Scheme. We understand that a significant majority of criminal legal aid solicitors would regard the scheme as workable and viable if these measures were adopted on an interim basis, pending the outcome of the Department's comprehensive review of Criminal Legal Aid and the wider criminal justice reforms currently under way.

The Law Society stands ready to continue engaging constructively with the Minister and his officials to support that review process, and to help develop a criminal legal aid system that commands the confidence of practitioners, serves the public interest, and ensures the effective administration of justice.”