If you think legal aid is expensive, wait until you hear how costly the alternative is

Sir, – In the past year, my wife and I have had occasion to engage, separately, the services of a locksmith and a washing-machine technician.

Each attended our home for about 20 minutes and provided expert service and they charged about €400 and €300 respectively for the call-out and a nominal amount for the parts.

To the best of my information and belief each only needed a website, a van and a bag of tools to practise their trade.

Solicitors on the other hand, to practise their profession, need to finance an office, car/travel expenses, clerical/secretarial staff wages, annual practising certificate, independent auditor, professional indemnity insurance, mandatory continuing professional education seminars, phones, office equipment, computer services and staff and personal pension contributions.

The cost of all of the foregoing is a necessary expense before the practitioner turns the key in the office on January 2nd and earns a cent.

May I respectfully suggest that Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan descend from the cosseted Ivory Tower of the Law Library and chauffeur-driven ministerial comfort and get real.

The provision of publicly funded legal aid in criminal matters to those without the means to afford it is properly regarded as a human right.

The Minister might do well to consider what it would cost the State to engage, accommodate and service hundreds of solicitors and barristers as permanent and pensionable employees/public servants, which is the only alternative to agreeing reasonable contractual terms with those highly qualified professional independent contractors.

I retired as a solicitor at the end of 2019 and was never on the criminal legal aid register. – Yours, etc,

TERRY GRIFFIN,

Drumcondra,

Dublin 9.

Sir, – The extraordinary allegation by Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan that solicitors have deliberately targeted rape cases in order to press their grievances on the legal aid reforms is a grotesque smear of the profession and is a stain on O’Callaghan’s office.

If O’Callaghan’s calculated and scurrilous claim is not publicly withdrawn, the Law Society of Ireland should respond by bringing the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme to an end for once and for all.

Then let the Minister introduce a US-style “public defenders” system, which the last Government explored but quietly abandoned in 2023 on cost grounds, and then explain to taxpayers why he has brought about a system that costs radically more than the existing scheme. – Yours, etc,

BARRY WALSH,

Solicitor,

Clontarf,

Dublin 3.

Sir, – The dispute between the Minister for Justice and solicitors over the adjournment of rape trials illustrates a familiar problem in industrial relations: both sides attribute responsibility for the same harm to the decisions of the other.

The Minister points to the solicitors’ withdrawal of services. The solicitors point to the Minister’s decision to change the criminal legal aid fee structure. Each treats its own conduct as a response to the other’s.

The law and economics scholar Ronald Coase described such problems as reciprocal, arguing that the attribution of blame risked distracting from the real question: how to avoid more serious harm?

The consequences for complainants are profoundly serious. The history of industrial relations would suggest that dialogue, not accusation, is the path forward. – Yours, etc,

JACK LARKIN,

Crumlin,

Dublin 12.