Fianna Fáil members of the Oireachtas justice committee have hit out at statements by its chairman, Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy, relating to contentious fee changes in the criminal legal aid system.A bitter row over the changes with Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan has meant solicitors walking out of courts around the country this week and has led to widespread case adjournments. Earlier this week, Carthy sent a letter to O’Callaghan calling on him to stall the introduction of a new system, which came into effect on Wednesday. It will mean a flat fee of €520 paid to solicitors operating under the criminal legal aid scheme, regardless of the number of court appearances. But now Fianna Fáil members of the justice committee have asked Carthy to withdraw his claim that the call to suspend the new system was supported unanimously by its members. In a statement on Thursday, they said they “fully support” O’Callaghan’s move: “The Cathaoirleach of the Committee stated on 2nd July 2026 that the proposal to suspend the new system was a unanimous decision by the Committee members taken after engagement with the Minister for Justice, the Law Society and the Bar of Ireland. This is not the case.”They said a committee meeting before Carthy’s letter and statements had no scheduled vote, and that Carthy did not call a vote of members when his proposal to contact O’Callaghan was put to the committee. “The Fianna Fáil members of the Committee now call on Deputy Carthy to correct this statement and confirm that no vote was called or taken of the full membership of the Committee.”Carthy said the proposal to write to O’Callaghan was made by Fine Gael TD Paula Butterly during an open session of the committee.“I asked was it agreed and no member objected and that’s how committees work, someone has to object for a vote to be called,” Carthy said, arguing it was “absolutely in order”.“The Fianna Fáil members were either asleep at the meeting or are now trying to backtrack as to what was clearly agreed.” Earlier, Carthy said the civil legal aid scheme in parts of the country was “in absolute crisis”.He said this was why the Oireachtas justice committee unanimously called on the Minister to suspend the current scheme, provide proper data and engagement with the representative organisation, “so that we can actually do what the Minister says he wants to do, which is create an effective District Court system”.Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland on Thursday, Carthy said the payment structure had led to an exodus of solicitors from the civil legal aid scheme and “a huge backlog” in family law cases.How the duplicitous double life of Jeffrey Donaldson threatens the future of unionism Listen | 38:39“What the Minister has done ... is replicate that model and put it into the criminal legal aid scheme, which means that he hasn’t learned from the lessons of the past, has already led to significant disruption in our court service because he has done this without proper engagement with the representatives of solicitors,” he said. He suggested the Minister’s changes would incentivise shorter cases and ensure some people do not get access “to the justice that they deserve”.“My concern is ensuring that we have an effective court system operating that’s serving the people it’s supposed to serve. The difficulty is it’s the actions of the Minister that have actually done the opposite of what his stated intention is,” he said. “Because we’ve seen further adjournments, we’ve seen huge disruption within our courts over the past number of days and weeks. The likelihood and the evidence that the justice committee heard this week is that there will be withdrawals from the criminal legal aid scheme that will result in a less effective court system.” He said there was a need to reduce adjournments and ensure the court process becomes more effective. “But what the Minister has actually done is the opposite of that this week.”