Solicitor Michael Finucane has said that while solicitors keep trying to engage with the Minister for Justice, they will also continue their industrial action in the dispute over the introduction of a flat fee payment for criminal legal aid cases. A “clear invitation” had been extended to Jim O’Callaghan to have “real and meaningful discussion” about the proposals the Minister wanted to implement, he told Newstalk Breakfast with Anton Savage.
“We will work with him and his department to find a solution that actually addresses the requirements of the criminal justice system,” Finucane said. “Maybe that hasn’t happened yet, but we’re willing to keep talking.”
The dispute, which has resulted in work stoppages in the criminal courts as solicitors opposed the new system, arose over the introduction of a flat fee payment at the beginning of this month.
O’Callaghan is sticking with the flat fee payment of €520 for criminal legal aid cases but, in a bid to break the deadlock, has agreed to pay two-thirds of the fee at the start of a case and the remaining third at the conclusion of the case or 12 months later, whichever comes first.
Finucane said the Minister’s “modified” offer was “obviously unsustainable ... and in terms of the rest of the concerns raised by solicitors and raised by the Law Society on our behalf, he hasn’t changed anything at all”.
