The Legal Aid Board will meet its target of reducing waiting lists in its centres to below four months by this weekend, it has been announced.
The director of legal aid, Frank Brady, said this marked a drop from a waiting time of up to 17 months for a first appointment earlier this year.
The board is holding a conference in Kerry this weekend to celebrate 25 years of legal aid at which it will announce meeting its waiting list target.
Meanwhile, the independent free legal aid service and lobby group, Flac, has called on the Legal Aid Board to advertise its services more widely and offer a broader service to people who cannot afford legal advice.
Noeline Blackwell, director general of Flac, said that after the injection of cash by the Minister for Justice last November, waiting lists at most centres were reduced. She welcomed this development.
She said the bulk of cases dealt with by the Legal Aid Board concerned family law, with only 1.83 per cent of cases falling into other categories in 2003, the last year for which figures are available.
Legal aid centres are prevented by the legislation setting the service up to represent people before employment appeals tribunals and social welfare appeals tribunals.
However, Ms Blackwell said that this did not mean they could not offer advice in these areas, and there was no legal reason why they could not represent people in appeals from the Employment Appeals Tribunal to the Circuit Court.
She also said that some people may not know of their entitlement to free legal aid. In a case brought against the board last November by a woman who was unable to get legal aid speedily, O'Donoghue v Legal Aid Board, Mr Justice Kelly mentioned that Ms O'Donoghue did not know of the existence of legal aid through the law centres. Their services should be more widely advertised, she said.
Mr Brady said the Legal Aid Board was planning a publicity campaign in the autumn to increase awareness of its services.