Barristers demanded a “binding” commitment and “more leadership” at Government level over reversing recession-era criminal legal-aid fee cuts as they again withdrew their services at courthouses on Monday.
The strike action, the second this month with a third planned next week, brought criminal business to a standstill at the Courts of Criminal Justice (CCJ) in Dublin and other venues around the country.
As many criminal cases had been adjourned to tomorrow in advance of today’s strike action, the CCJ was almost empty of people apart from security staff.
On the steps outside, dozens of barristers held placards bearing the slogan Fair is Fair. Similar protests took place at courthouses in Cork, Limerick, Galway and Castlebar
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The number of courthouses affected was fewer than the 16 last week because criminal business is not conducted in some courthouses on Mondays.
The council of The Bar of Ireland, the barristers’ representative body, had recommended the actions due to the lack of progress in establishing an “independent, meaningful, time-limited and binding mechanism” to determine fees paid to criminal barristers by the Director of Public Prosecutions and under the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Scheme.
Following an unprecedented withdrawal of criminal barristers’ services last October, Budget 2024 provided for 10 per cent fee restoration, but the council says the full range of emergency-era cuts that were applied across the public sector continue to apply to the profession and the breaking in 2008 of the link to public-sector pay agreements has not been restored.
At Monday’s protest, council chairwoman Sara Phelan SC said since last week’s action the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) issued a statement to the effect it was up to the Department of Justice to set the fees payable.
The Department of Justice appears to be saying it cannot do anything ahead of next October’s budget and any fees set have to be sanctioned by DPER, she said.
“We’re not too sure where the ball is – all we know is that it is not in our court, it is in the Government’s court.”
The council would like to see “more leadership at Government level”, she said. “We don’t believe they can’t make a binding commitment to us now that reform would be implemented and fee cuts would be restored in the budget.”
Barristers want to be in court representing their clients and it is “very regrettable” the protests are happening but “we have been left with no choice,” Ms Phelan said.
Barrister Aoife McNickle, practising at the criminal bar for 15 years, is from Co Donegal originally and not from a legal background.
She said she has witnessed “great changes”, including in the number and complexity of criminal cases, but that work, and the criminal justice system, is not being valued with many barristers leaving the criminal bar.
People their fifth, sixth year, even their 10th year of practice, “aren’t able to earn a living wage”, she said. It is “hugely disappointing” that barristers had to strike for the third time with “no follow through on commitments made last October”, she said. “It’s a kick in the teeth to the whole criminal justice system.”
Ukranian-born barrister Anna Bazarchina, who came to Ireland as a child, was protesting over the fee cuts and in favour of a mechanism for direct payments to barristers working in the District Court for “very low rates”, ranging from as little as €27 a day.
Barristers doing District Court work are paid by solicitors and have to wait for payment until after solicitors themselves are paid from the criminal legal aid scheme, and this can take months, she said. “For young barristers it is extremely difficult.”
One of the reasons why criminal barristers struggle to make it beyond the first five or six years is because they mainly rely on District Court work, she said, adding she would like to see an independent scheme for direct payment to barristers for that work.
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