{"id":547518,"date":"2026-07-13T14:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T14:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/547518\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T14:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T14:13:09","slug":"ocallaghan-will-not-give-in-to-solicitors-over-free-legal-aid-fee-changes-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/547518\/","title":{"rendered":"O\u2019Callaghan \u2018will not give in\u2019 to solicitors over free legal-aid fee changes \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan<\/a> has said he is not for turning over the issue of a set fee for free legal-aid cases. <\/p>\n

Fifty-five solicitors have so far withdrawn from the free legal aid service as a result of a dispute with O\u2019Callaghan over the imposition of a flat fee of \u20ac520 for all free legal aid cases. <\/p>\n

Those who had resigned from the free legal aid panels were \u201cgetting all the attention\u201d rather than the 800 or so solicitors who still remain on it, he stated. <\/p>\n

Speaking following the unveiling of the Court Services of Ireland<\/a> annual report, O\u2019Callaghan said he will keep the new system under review, but the decision to offer a flat fee was taken at Cabinet on February 28th this year and will not be revoked. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think part of what\u2019s happening at present is that some solicitors think that if they put enough pressure on the system to disrupt cases that this is going to result in political pressure on me, and I\u2019m going to revoke the regulations. That\u2019s not going to happen,\u201d he stressed. <\/p>\n

The Minister said the new regulations are being introduced to stop abuses of the system whereby solicitors get a fee for each adjournment. He also said it will help speed up the processing of cases. <\/p>\n

He cited a case involving a man from Kerry, Keith O\u2019Brien, who was charged with a public order offence after being intoxicated following the Kerry-Dublin All-Ireland SFC final in Croke Park in 2023.<\/p>\n

The case, which was dismissed last week by a judge as a legacy issue, was symptomatic, the Minister said, of delays in the courts system. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat is unacceptable, that somebody who faces a minor offence can find themselves not having their case determined within a period of three years,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not about me blaming solicitors. This is about recognising that the system needs to be improved. And a system which has a payment structure which encourages adjournments is going to encourage situations like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The previous fee was \u20ac240 plus \u20ac60 for each adjourned hearing. The new flat fee of \u20ac520 actually amounts to an increase as the average number of hearings for a case to be determined is five, he suggested. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt will encourage the quick determination of cases in the District Court to ensure that we don\u2019t have a situation like that man from Kerry.\u201d <\/p>\n

Court Services of Ireland chief executive Angela Denning said there will be a large backlog of cases if the dispute continues, but the Court Services faced a similar backlog after Covid-19 and it was cleared. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan has said he is not for turning over the issue of a set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[36527,42,18573,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-547518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-courts-service","tag-headlines","tag-jim-ocallaghan","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547518","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=547518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}