{"id":525727,"date":"2026-06-30T11:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T11:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/525727\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T11:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T11:48:08","slug":"this-may-cause-chaos-cork-solicitors-to-resign-from-aid-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/525727\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;This may cause chaos&#8217;: Cork solicitors to resign from aid scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Solicitors on the free legal aid scheme for criminal cases will resign from the panel en masse tomorrow if <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/news\/arid-41864370.html\">payment changes proposed<\/a> by the minister for justice are signed into law.<\/p>\n<p>Solicitor Joseph Cuddigan announced the proposed <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/news\/courtandcrime\/arid-41864694.html\">escalation of the action<\/a> by solicitors at Cork District Court yesterday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Currently, solicitors are paid a fee of approximately \u20ac240 for a first appearance for a client and about \u20ac60 for each subsequent sitting, but justice minister Jim O\u2019Callaghan wants to replace this with a single payment regardless of the number of court appearances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Mr O\u2019Callaghan insists the new fee model will be \u201cvery generous\u201d but will also remove \u201cserious inefficiencies\u201d in the District Court system, where spending on criminal legal aid has soared in recent years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The single payment is expected to be between \u20ac455 and \u20ac582 per case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Since the dispute began earlier this month, solicitors already assigned to cases have been appearing in court to say they are not in a position to act for their clients.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">An escalation of the action is expected to lead to delays across the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Books of evidence are already not being served for cases to be sent forward from the district court to the circuit court for trial, and some bail applications are also being made without legal representation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">From tomorrow, the solicitors will not appear at all in court for these cases.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Mr Cuddigan said: \u201cSadly, solicitors in Cork city on the criminal free legal aid panel \u2014 in the event of the minister for justice crossing the Rubicon and signing the statutory instrument putting his unilateral proposals into effect on Wednesday \u2014we are all resigning from the panel en masse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cThis may cause chaos and turmoil, which we regret, but it is not a matter of our choosing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Judge Miriam Walsh said she was not commenting on the matter except to say that people had a right to take a position in a dispute as long as it was done in a peaceful manner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">At Cork Circuit Criminal Court, 25 cases were listed for sentencing yesterday, but they could not proceed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Solicitor Aidan Desmond informed Judge Dermot Sheehan of the escalation of the solicitors\u2019 action, with the withdrawal of solicitors from the criminal free legal aid panel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Judge Sheehan said: \u201cIf they withdraw from the panel, then when the matter is resolved, they would be unable to take on new work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cIt is a mess, obviously, that we are in that position.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The introduction of the new payment model has been strongly opposed by the Law Society, and across the country, thousands of District Court cases have been adjourned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Solicitors on the free legal aid scheme for criminal cases will resign from the panel en masse tomorrow&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-525727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-courts","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}