THE LEGAL Aid Board has reported a significant increase in the demand for its services for the fourth year running.
The board provides civil legal aid and advice in its law centres to those unable to afford a private solicitor.
This is separate to the criminal legal aid system, where legal aid is provided by private solicitors when granted by the court to a person who is charged. The criminal legal aid system will shortly be administered by the Legal Aid Board, following a decision by the Government.
In the civil law area, the Legal Aid Board last year received more than 17,000 applications for legal assistance, an increase of 21 per cent on the previous year and of 74 per cent since 2006.
The board identified two main causes for the increase in demand: the economic downturn means that far more people are now eligible under the means test for its services; there is also an increased demand for legal services in the areas of family law, debt and unemployment.
The only area of its activities that saw a drop was the Refugee Legal Service, where there was a drop of almost 37 per cent in asylum seekers seeking legal advice. This corresponded to a fall in the number of asylum applications in recent years.
While the demand for services increased overall, exchequer funding for the civil legal aid service fell by 8 per cent, and staffing levels fell by 7 per cent during 2010.
Anne Colley, chairwoman of the board, said it faced the challenge of “doing more with less” and had responded by restructuring services and introducing innovative ways of delivering service.
This included the introduction of an “advice-only” service in law centres to ensure that clients got an initial appointment with a solicitor within four months.
The board’s chief executive, Dr Moling Ryan, said that although waiting times have increased beyond the target time of four months in more than half of its law centres, matters considered to be priorities get immediate or nearly immediate attention. These include domestic violence, child abduction, applications by the State to take children into care and cases where statutory time limits are close to expiry.
He also pointed out that a pilot-integrated mediation service had been set up in Dublin to redirect family law cases away from a court environment.