Call for mediator to help resolve legal aid dispute

The president of the Law Society has called for an independent mediator to be appointed to help resolve the dispute over the new criminal legal aid scheme.

Rosemarie Loftus has also told the Minister for Justice that she was surprised by his recent comment that the courts were functioning effectively and said the current impasse was having “a profound impact on the administration of justice”.

The dispute over the new flat fee payment scheme for criminal defence solicitors has caused nationwide disruption to court hearings and led to the majority of defence solicitors withdrawing their services.

Ms Loftus said she was surprised by the minister’s comment in light of “deeply worrying” and “stark” figures for July which show the number of legal aid certificates issued in July has fallen by 93% compared to the same month last year.

In a letter to Minister Jim O’Callaghan, Ms Loftus said she was hugely concerned at the impact the current dispute is having on victims of crime, those accused of crime and the general public and court users.

Talks between the Law Society and the minister – after the scheme was introduced – led to some changes including a provision for staged payments, but solicitors say the changes did not go far enough and did not address their fundamental objection to a flat fee payment regardless of the amount of work involved in different cases.

In her letter to the minister, Ms Loftus said the changes “did not in any way alter the two fundamental issues that remain at the heart of the current dispute”.

Solicitors oppose the new rules which say multiple cases against one accused person should be treated as a single matter for the purposes of payment if they come before the court on the same date.

They say this fails to reflect the amount of work involved. They also want cases involving vulnerable clients that require multiple hearings to be treated differently.

Ms Loftus said Courts Service figures for July 2026 show the number of legal aid certificates granted is down 93% from 10,277 to just 702 in July 2026.

The letter outlines a breakdown of those figures including data concerning the Children’s Court which shows the number of legal aid certificates issued fell from 128 in July last year to nine in July this year.

A total of 3,344 certificates were issued at the Criminal Courts of Justice in July 2025 compared with 60 this year.

In Cork city 579 certificates were issued in July 2025 compared with 18 in July this year, a fall of 97% according to figures cited by Ms Loftus.

Ms Loftus said: “As you know, behind each of these numbers is a defendant without representation, a victim whose wait for justice keeps getting adjourned, a garda anxious to bring a case to conclusion and many others who are directly impacted.”

She said the “time has come” to consider the appointment of an independent mediator to help “bridge the gap” between “policy objectives” and “practical realities experienced by practitioners on the ground”.