“Your solicitors may not be here today due to the industrial dispute. I can try to facilitate you if you want to appear or I will put it back until your solicitor can appear.”
Judge Michelle Finan began proceedings in Dublin District Court 1 with these words this morning with the impact of the legal aid payments dispute being felt.
Dozens of cases were adjourned while in others, the accused represented themselves because there was no solicitor available.
Keith O Brien, 27, was one of those who opted to represent himself after discovering he had no solicitor when he arrived.
Mr O Brien travelled from Kerry this morning and only discovered he had no legal representation when he arrived at the Central Criminal Court.
He was charged with a public order offence after being intoxicated at the Kerry-Dublin All-Ireland SFC final in Croke Park in 2023.
He said he “had no clue” that he would not have a solicitor and decided to represent himself “and get it done”.
“I was a bit nervous, especially finding out just before I went in that I didn’t have a solicitor”.
Having come all the way from Tralee, he decided “to take whatever is coming to me and just move on”.
Watch: Keith O Brien says he wanted to ‘get it done’ as he represented himself
He told the judge he had been sober for two years after the birth of his first baby son.
Judge Finan “commended” him and threw out the case because it “was a legacy case”.
Mr O Brien was one of many accused who represented themselves before Judge Finan in the District Court 1 in the CCJ today.
Judge Finan began proceedings by telling all those in court that their solicitors would not be there due to an industrial dispute.
She said she would try to facilitate anyone who wanted to appear, or she could put back the cases until their solicitor was available.
In the vast majority of cases, there was no appearance by the accused, and the judge put the cases back until a later date asking gardaí to notify the accused.
Some decided to represent themselves, pleading guilty and being fined for minor offences while in other cases, the judge felt it was appropriate to adjourn them because of potential legal issues.
One woman who was in custody said it was her “constitutional right” to have legal representation to make a bail application, but there was no solicitor available.
Becoming emotional in the witness box, she chose to represent herself saying she wanted to get out prison and pleaded with the judge to grant her bail.
Evidence was heard along with garda objections to bail including that a number of bench warrants she had for failing to turn up in court on other unrelated charges in the past.
Judge Finan refused her bail application but told the woman who could appeal that decision to the High Court.
She said if she was unable to do that she would give an opportunity for the bail application to be made again in a few weeks.
In the case of another woman in custody Judge Finan said “it wasn’t fair” that she did not have legal representation.
Her bail application was also refused, but the judge told her to appeal to the High Court.
Figures from the Irish Courts service show that 55 solicitors have formally resigned from the legal aid panel, which had 885 names on the 1 July.