{"id":573296,"date":"2026-07-29T05:48:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T05:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/573296\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T05:48:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T05:48:12","slug":"flat-fee-to-remain-as-ocallaghan-announces-changes-to-legal-aid-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/573296\/","title":{"rendered":"Flat fee to remain as O\u2019Callaghan announces changes to legal aid scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan has announced changes to the new legal aid scheme that has prompted solicitor strikes, but said the flat fee \u201cwill remain\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Law Society of Ireland said criminal law solicitors would consider the correspondence from the minister.<\/p>\n

On July 1st, O\u2019Callaghan implemented a flat fee of \u20ac520 for criminal legal aid in the district court, rather than per-appearance fees, prompting anger and withdrawal of services among solicitors practising in the area.<\/p>\n

Previously, solicitors were given \u20ac240 for the first appearance and \u20ac60 on subsequent appearances.<\/p>\n

The new 520 euro flat fee is equivalent to five appearances under the old system \u2013 which Mr O\u2019Callaghan argues is the average amount of appearances for criminal legal aid cases \u2013 plus an eightper cent increase in fees which was given to all criminal lawyers this year.<\/p>\n

The minister is committed to improving the efficiencies for court users, legal practitioners and the Irish public<\/p>\n

Department of Justice<\/p>\n

Solicitors have been withdrawing their services from criminal cases where a person does not have the means to pay for a lawyer and requires legal aid.<\/p>\n

This has resulted in criminal cases being delayed, which support groups have said is having an impact on survivors and victims.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Callaghan met with the Law Society of Ireland on Monday to hear about issues practitioners had with changes to the legal aid scheme.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, he said the flat fee of \u20ac520 for district court criminal legal aid cases \u201cwill remain in place\u201d.<\/p>\n

But he said the payment of the flat fee would be \u201csplit\u201d so that two-thirds of the fee would be paid at the start of a case and the remaining third would be paid at the end of the case, or after 12 months after the case starts, whichever is first.<\/p>\n

The Department of Justice said this had no cost implications for the criminal legal aid scheme.<\/p>\n

The minister also confirmed the new criminal legal aid scheme allows for a new certificate to be issued for an accused person where the charges are \u201cdistinct and separate\u201d to any court appearance by them previously.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe minister has asked his officials to keep an ongoing review of the operation of the new district court scheme in the children\u2019s court and for cases where over 20 appearances are required over the coming six months to inform any changes that may be required within these limited circumstances,\u201d the Department of Justice said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinally, the minister confirmed that any criminal legal aid solicitor who has resigned from the panel but now wants to be reinstated arising from the above clarification will be able to do so without delay by requesting same from the court service.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe minister is committed to improving the efficiencies for court users, legal practitioners and the Irish public.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new district court criminal legal aid scheme will allow for those efficiencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Law Society of Ireland, a body representing solicitors in Ireland, said it would consider the proposals.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Judges<\/p>\n

Ireland<\/p>\n

Judges criticise solicitors’ withdrawing their services as trials adjourned<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Law Society received correspondence from the Minister for Justice this afternoon which has been circulated to criminal law solicitors,\u201d said president Rosemarie Loftus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chair of the criminal law committee will be calling a meeting of practitioners to discuss the contents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Law Society is seeking clarification from the Department of Justice on a number of matters in advance of that meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan has announced changes to the new legal aid scheme that has prompted solicitor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-573296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","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\/573296","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=573296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}