State solicitors yesterday urged the Government to engage in talks with them as a matter of priority as they began a work to rule that could cause major disruption to the court systems if it continues into next week.
The State Solicitors' Association represents the country's 32 state solicitors and yesterday association president Michael Murray urged the Government to begin talks without any preconditions before the dispute escalates next week when the solicitors withdraw from Circuit Courts.
The background to the dispute is the association's claim that its members have been subsidising the service for many years.
Mr Murray claimed yesterday, that, while the association had agreed a financial deal with the Government to remedy this, the agreement was made contingent upon the solicitors accepting new contracts.
He said the State solicitors had been subsidising the service out of their own private practices by paying for staff costs, office costs and general administration costs and to date the 32 solicitors were owed a total of €5.7 million in arrears by the State.
According to Mr Murray, the proposed new contract is so restrictive that it would prevent State solicitors from operating a private practice and, given that many of the association's members were part-time State solicitors who needed a private practice, this was not tenable.
The new contract would also involve a change in their security of tenure from the current position where some are on life contracts and others on 10-year contracts to a situation where State solicitors could be dismissed from the post at 12 months' notice without compensation.
The State solicitors have up to now been attached to the Office of the Attorney General but the Government has proposed to transfer them to the office of the Director of Public Prosecution and has offered new contracts with the DPP as part of the transfer.
"The reality is that we are very close to an agreement but unfortunately we have encountered certain difficulties in engaging with the State particularly last week and there again seems to be some difficulty meeting with us this week, which is surprising.
"We are available and anxious to enter into discussions because we believe that the difficulties that do exist can be resolved if common sense prevails on both sides, but we cannot countenance a situation where we can continue to subsidise the State," he said.
State Solicitors prosecute certain ministerial cases in the District Court as well as preparing files for the DPP while they also act in District Court appeals and instruct barristers in the Circuit Court and their withdrawal from the Circuit Courts next week looks set to have a major impact.
A Government spokesman said that while the payment of arrears would be made after the current contract negotiations were completed, the State had offered to pay some of the arrears in advance of concluding negotiations but this offer had been refused by the SSA.
The spokesman denied that the new contract would make private practice impossible but said it was designed to ensure that State business took precedence and that State solicitors did not engage in business that could conflict with a current or potential criminal prosecution.
An independent mediator had made proposals to resolve the dispute and these have been accepted by the Government but not yet by the SSA, added the spokesman.
He said no disruption to the Court Service was anticipated as a result of the solicitors' action.
