The legal aid service for asylum-seekers and refugees is "totally inadequate", the Law Society committee's report found.
The report calls for proper staffing by fully qualified solicitors of the Refugee Legal Service, an offshoot of the Legal Aid Board which assists asylum-seekers at all stages of the asylum applications process.
The Refugee Legal Service, based in the Dublin "one-stop shop" for asylum-seekers, has 29 staff including 11 in-house law clerks and seven solicitors. It has 3,000 clients at various stages of the asylum applications process.
The committee's report says law clerks, instead of solicitors, are helping asylum-seekers complete an 84-question questionnaire which forms the basis of their claim to be granted refugee status.
This detailed questionnaire includes factual as well as legal matters, and the committee says asylum-seekers should always be referred to a solicitor when filling it in.
"The committee would be quite anxious that given the stakes involved for these people they would have access to a solicitor in filling in this questionnaire," said Ms Rosemary Horgan, the chairwoman of the society's Family Law and Civil Legal Aid Committee.
The report also calls for higher fees for private solicitors who take on Legal Aid Board funded appeals for asylum-seekers challenging refusals to grant them refugee status by Department of Justice officials.
The Law Society is involved in protracted negotiations with the Legal Aid Board over the basic rate of £143.37 per asylum appeal case, which it says is paltry.
The society is understood to be seeking three times or more the current basic rate, which includes daily top-up payments of £35.85. Until the fee is increased, the society is encouraging its members not to take on refugee appeal cases. The disputed fees apply also to legal aid work by private solicitors in family law cases at the District Court.
The Legal Aid Board's chief executive, Mr Frank Goodman, said he was surprised at the committee's criticism of the use of law clerks in the Refugee Legal Service.
He said the clerks had received "intensive training" in refugee law by the UNHCR and did "basic work" under the direction of solicitors, as is common in other legal companies.
Meanwhile, the Refugee Legal Service is opening three new branches. A Cork office has already opened and offices in Waterford and Galway are due to open in the coming month, according to Mr Frank Brady, the board's director of Legal Aid.