Disruption to the criminal courts in County Clare has ended with all Clare based solicitors resuming work on all criminal legal aid cases before the courts.
As a result of the introduction of the flat rate €520 criminal legal aid fee since the start of July, legal aid solicitors withdrew their services in Clare in the vast bulk of cases over the Summer months.
The solicitors continued to represent legal aid clients in custody and at Ennis District Court on Wednesday the vast bulk of solicitors who had been engaging in the protest action against the Dept of Justice resumed representing legal aid clients in all cases.
Figures released by the Courts Service this week underlined the impact on the courts for the month of July.
They show that in Clare alone there were 29 legal aid certificates issued for the month of July for the Ennis court area compared to 166 for the same month last year – a drop of 82.5pc year on year.
Nationally there was a drop of 93pc where the Courts Service data shows just 702 criminal legal aid certificates were issued in district courts in July, compared with 10,277 in the same month last year.
A small number of cases may continue to be adjourned in Clare courts where accused persons are represented by solicitors not based in Clare and who are continuing in the dispute with the Dept of Justice over the new flat fee regime.
The €520 flat fee is irrespective of the number of charges and court appearances and replaced the previous system of around €239 for the first appearance and €60 for each subsequent appearance.
The Clare solicitors will have to work through a large backlog of cases that built up mainly across the month of July.
In court on Wednesday, Judge Adrian Harris told one of the Clare legal aid panel solicitors, John Casey who has resumed representing all legal aid clients that a client of his who is in custody has had his case adjourned nine times since May and none of the adjournments can be attributed to any action taken by the defence.
Judge Harris said: “I am certainly not going to enter the political realm but this is a good example the type of the great work criminal legal aid solicitors do and this has been the ninth or tenth time before court and you have been advocating strongly for your client on the need for assessments and DPP directions from the get-go and through no fault of the defence the matters have come before the court on a number of occasions.”
During July, most of the court business of Ennis Circuit Court also had to be adjourned to the solicitors’ protest action.
At Ennis Circuit Court in July, Judge Francis Comerford described the impact of the criminal legal aid row as a “mess’ after being forced to adjourn two sex abuse trials where one accused had flown in from the US and a second where two complainants had travelled from Canada.
Judge Comerford made his comment after adjourning trial dates for the two cases into October due to no legal representation in each case over the solicitors’ row with the Dept of Justice.
In one of the cases where a 91-year old Co Clare man is facing indecent assault charges against two females from more than half a century ago the two complainants had flown in from Canada to Ennis in July for the trial.
However, the two had to return to Canada with the trial adjourned and are scheduled to return to Ennis Circuit Court next month.
