Madam, – The Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern is reported to be “extremely concerned” over the “escalating costs” of the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme (Home News, January 27th).
On the same page, you publish a list of highest earning solicitors and barristers with reference to payments under the Scheme. Those payments, for 2009, include VAT at a rate of 21.5 per cent.
The total cost of the Legal Aid Scheme for the calendar year 2009, including VAT, is €57.5 million. Rates were significantly reduced in early 2009, but the increased cost of the scheme to the taxpayer is simply and solely a product of more people being prosecuted for serious offences.
A functioning criminal justice system is an essential part of a democracy, and Ireland is constitutionally and internationally obliged to make provision for the payment from the public purse of legal fees for those persons accused of serious offences who are not in a position to discharge their own legal costs. Seen in the context of the expense of the Criminal Justice System as a whole, which would include the Garda Síochána, the Irish Prison Service, the office of the DPP and the Courts Service, the scheme is seen for what it is, a low cost and vital part of administration of justice. Our system works well, has exceptionally low administrative costs, and provides excellent value for money. Meanwhile a huge new Criminal Courts Complex had opened in Dublin in respect of which the monthly rental payable over a 25-year-lease is believed to be €1.6 million.
It is worthy of note that while quite clearly substantial payments are made out to various individual solicitors on your list, every single one of those solicitors operates a small business, with concomitant overheads, often employing significant numbers of people, and has already had to absorb substantial pay cuts over the last 15 months.
In Business Today of the same edition you report that a panel of solicitors has been assembled to provide legal services to Nama. Payments to lawyers on the panel will total €2.64 billion over 10 years. Mr Ahern is a member of the Government that has created Nama and effectively underwritten a blank cheque, at the taxpayers’ expense, for one of the least politically popular causes in living memory. It is a matter for your readers whether they adjudge the Nama adventure, or the constitutionally operational criminal justice system, to be better value. – Yours, etc,