Judge adjourns challenge to legal aid rules due to talks

Updated / Tuesday, 10 Nov 2026 16:51

A high court judge has adjourned making final orders in a challenge taken by a solicitor to new legal aid regulations after being told that talks between the two sides were ongoing.

Ms Justice Mary Rose Gearty was told solicitors' representatives and officials from the Department of Justice were meeting this afternoon.

The court heard this was the third meeting since Judge Gearty’s ruling last week that parts of the new regulations were "grossly unfair" and "demonstrably illogical".

The new regulations provide for a flat fee of €520 per accused person, regardless of the number of charges or the number of court appearances.

Protests by solicitors against the new regulations have disrupted the criminal justice system for more than four months.

Judge Gearty said the ongoing talks showed good faith on both sides.

She said both parties had been working together for many years and would be for years to come, and she said "nothing could be better" than the parties reaching an accommodation.

The judge said the matter would benefit from talks between the sides, especially as there were now two more legal challenges to the regulations.

Both new challenges involve accused people charged with a number of separate offences challenging the refusal to grant separate certificates to their solicitors for separate sets of charges.

Last week the judge ruled that the provision in the new regulations allowing for one legal aid certificate to be issued – no matter how many charges an accused person faced, whether or not the charges were linked or how many court appearances the case could involve – was "demonstrably illogical".

She also found that waiting for the case to be completely finished, before the solicitor would receive the payment was "grossly unfair".

That provision has since been changed by the minister to allow most of the payment to be made at the beginning of the case.

The matters were adjourned to today to allow final orders to be made based on her ruling. But the judge was told that the minister was looking for a further two-week adjournment to consider his position.

Barrister Davy Lalor said the minister was seeking the adjournment in light of the ongoing discussions with the Law Society.

Mr Lalor said the issues to be decided in relation to the court’s judgment were not straightforward and would require some thought and would also depend on the outcome of the negotiations.

Judge Gearty granted the adjournment saying a lot of the matters to be decided were "essentially industrial relations issues which could be resolved between the parties" and would become more complicated if they were the subject of a court order.

Although, she added, she would make such an order if she had to.

The case will be back in court on 24 November.

The new challenges were adjourned until 1 December.