Legal services to help low-income families resolve disputes over child access, custody and maintenance before the courts have been cut back in recent days.
The move by the Legal Aid Board prompted a warning yesterday that the most needy families will experience increased legal delays which will increase the trauma of family disputes.
The board has ceased its funding for private solicitors in Dublin to take court cases on issues such as maintenance, guardianship, custody and access disputes. People eligible for legal aid who need representation in the courts over such issues will no longer be able to turn to private solicitors, who had been paid €350 per case by the board as part of its Private Practitioners' Scheme.
Instead, legal aid clients will have to join the waiting lists in the board's law centres in Dublin before seeing a solicitor. Waiting lists in Dublin centres range from two to three months in some areas to up to eight months in the busy centre on Ormond Quay.
The cutbacks will not affect people involved in domestic violence cases, who accounted for 700 of the 11,000 users of the Private Practitioners' Scheme last year. The scheme will still apply to private solicitors' fees for cases involving domestic violence orders.
The Free Legal Advice Centres organisation (FLAC), which campaigns for equality of access to justice, said last night it was concerned that the cuts would severely affect low-income families who cannot afford private legal representation.
"Delay in child custody and access matters can have serious and irreversible implications for the parent-child relationship, child safety and for the ultimate outcome of the case," said Ms Catherine Hickey, FLAC's executive director.
"In maintenance cases, families already on the poverty line may have their circumstances severely worsened by the long wait to enforce their right to maintenance."
The board's director of legal aid, Mr Frank Brady, said the decision followed a reduction in its Government grant for this year to €17.075 million from €17.6 million last year.
The board does not have a great deal of discretion in its budget, with many fixed expenses including €10 million in salaries and €2 million in fees for barristers, he added. The board did not wish to take the decision to curtail access to the scheme, a move which will produce savings of €200,000 this year. "We had no option and we are determined to look at other ways to make savings elsewhere," he added.
Mr Brady did not agree that the move would lead to lengthy delays which would damage family relationships. "There will be delays in people getting legal services to access the courts, and that may have an impact on some people," he said.
However, Ms Hickey said that, while urgent cases were prioritised in law centres, services were already stretched and it was likely that waiting lists would soon reach unacceptable levels.