Barristers call for strike as frustration grows over failure to reverse cuts to criminal legal aid fees

Some barristers have called for strike action as frustration mounts over the Government’s failure to reverse cuts to criminal legal aid fees, particularly at District Court level.

About 70 barristers took part in a protest at the Criminal Courts of Justice on Tuesday over fee cuts imposed as part of emergency public service pay cuts during the financial crisis which have left barristers fees at 2002 levels.

The cuts particularly affect barristers instructed by the DPP to prosecute criminal cases in the District Court and barristers paid under the Department of Justice’s Criminal Justice Legal Aid Scheme to defend accused people.

Barrister Darren Lalor, one of the protest organisers, said barristers practising in criminal cases in the District Court are paid €25.20 for a remand hearing, €50.40 for a plea in mitigation at a sentence hearing and €67.50 for a full trial hearing.

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“We can’t survive on these fees, in reality it’s justice on the cheap,” he told The Irish Times. “The suit I’m wearing today cost just over €26 to be cleaned to wear in court for €25.20. The sums just don’t add up, if we were a business, we would be shut down long ago.”

“I’m very concerned about people leaving the profession but I’m more concerned about people not coming into the profession, people just can’t hang on any longer. We have a State which has turned its back on properly funding the criminal justice system.”

Noting the Bar Council has been negotiating for some seven years in a bid to get the cuts reversed, he said: “The only tactic now is full strike action if the cuts are not unwound, it’s as simple as that.”

Barrister Luigi Rea, another of the protest organisers, said: “I hope there is support for a strike, it’s not just about the profession, victims of crime and wrongly accused people both rely on what is paid out by the State to support the legal aid system.”

“It is unbelievable,” he said. “Who can go into a shop paying 2023 prices with 2002 wages? That is really what it is all about.”

Barrister Ciara Murray said the fee levels are not sustainable, particularly for young barristers. “I’m in my second year, this is not sustainable if you want your criminal justice system to properly represent people accused of crime and for victims of crime. ”

“In the first five years, you’re not making a sustainable living. A lot of people are trying to do bits of other work just to survive, certainly if you are paying rent you can’t survive down in the District Courts.”

Barrister William Morrin said he left the Bar after six years because he “found it totally unsustainable from a business model”. He was fortunate he had come into the Bar late in life and had a pension but when he found he was dipping into private funds to fund his Bar work, “it just became unsustainable”.

“The Bar is for people who have independent wealth and can come down and survive ten years without an adequate income. You would be lucky to earn €3,500-4,000 in your first year in the District Court, that’s if you get paid. The problem is we don’t get paid directly, we have to wait for solicitors to get paid and then we’re relying on the solicitor to pay us.”

Some solicitors are “very slow” to pay and the Bar had set up a fee recovery unit which has recovered some €1 million of €3 million in outstanding fees, he said.

There are many young barristers who are waitressing and working in shops and bars just to stay at the Bar, he said. “No other profession would allow it to be degraded to such an extent.”

Barrister Aine Holt said the low fees impact on her greatly because she is a pupil barrister about to start out on her own later this year. Since last October, she was paid €75 for work she had done in the District Court and could not live on that but is managing because of her pension from her previous employment as an assistant school principal, she said.

“If I were a young person who had just gone straight through college and who had come straight here, I would be out on my ear unless somebody could give me finance. It is totally wrong because younger people will not come to the criminal law and in the future there will be nobody to pick up the slack here at the level I am at now.”

“It is a huge injustice that a justice system perpetuates this injustice,” she said. When she was leaving her former employment, she did not realise the reality of life at the Bar “because the public perception is something completely different to the reality”.

The protest was not organised by the Bar of Ireland but members of the Bar council and of the Irish Criminal Barristers Association took part to show their support.

ICBA chair Simon Donagh said the council has been engaging “very proactively” with the relevant Department “to try and get this sorted once and for all” and his understanding was “they haven’t shut the door”.

The number at the protest “shows there is a growing appetite for further measure”, he said. Strike action was “the last option”, it would require wide support and members have not yet been canvassed on that, he said.

In a message to members of the Bar last Friday, Bar council chair Sara Phelan SC outlined the council has sought for some seven years to have the fees cuts reversed and it understood members’ frustration.

The Department of Public Expenditure & Reform, “for reasons that have never been explained” has “ignored” the recommendations of the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Department of Justice on the need to address the council’s claim for restoration of the fees “and has refused to engage with the council, she said.

“That Department’s failure is a direct threat to the maintenance of the highest standards in the administration of criminal justice in this country,” she said. Meetings will be arranged in the coming weeks for members “to discuss a response to that threat”.