Legal Aid Row: Monaghan Councillor Says Local Courts Are "Somewhat Dysfunctional" Amid Adjournments
The chair of the local community safety partnership, Cllr Alan Johnston, says the solicitors' dispute over a €520 flat legal aid fee has led to a significant number of adjournments in Cavan and Monaghan courts.
By the Monaghan Brief staff·Edited by Seamus McKenna·Published · 2 min read
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Monaghan Courthouse, Church Square. Archive location photograph; not a photo of the events in this story. Andreas F. Borchert · CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized and colour-graded; cropped in layout.
The national dispute between criminal legal aid solicitors and the Minister for Justice is causing "a significant amount of adjournments" in Cavan and Monaghan courts. Fine Gael Cllr Alan Johnston, chair of the local community safety partnership, told Northern Sound that the local court system had lately been "somewhat dysfunctional".
Solicitors have been withdrawing services over a €520 flat fee for District Court legal aid cases, introduced in July. Cllr Johnston said people who wanted representation on those days were told to go home. He said he would prefer to see gardaí "on the beat" on local streets rather than tied up with adjourned court cases, and he hoped for a swift resolution.
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RTÉ News reported that solicitors escalated the protest on 19 October by withdrawing most court services. Since July, they had already been withdrawing from cases where defendants were on bail. At Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 20 October, Judge Martin Nolan said he found it "astounding" that solicitors on record were not attending to represent clients in custody.
Northern Sound reported that Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan had accused solicitors of deliberately missing cases involving rape allegations. Cavan-Monaghan TD Matt Carthy called that comment "deliberately provocative".
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Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan comes before the Oireachtas Justice Committee, chaired by Cavan-Monaghan TD Matt Carthy, today as criminal defence solicitors step up their legal aid protest. In Monaghan, a whole District Court sitting has already been put back to December and about a quarter of the Circuit Court criminal list pushed to January.
Judge Raymond Finnegan has directed that every matter listed for Wednesday's Monaghan District Court sitting be adjourned or remanded to 9 December after the day's business was cancelled because of the ongoing criminal legal-aid solicitors' dispute.
Cllr Bronagh McAree says the HSE has not answered why Cavan and Monaghan lack the emergency mental health services available at Sligo University Hospital. Monaghan County Council will write back seeking a direct comparison and a timeframe.
