Legal aid controversy sees myriad of cases adjourned at Roscommon court

The ongoing dispute over controversial changes to the legal aid scheme is continuing to affect criminal cases in the county.

At this morning’s sitting of Roscommon District Court, local solicitors informed Judge Mary McAveety that they would be withdrawing their services in criminal cases. This resulted in most of the cases at the sitting being adjourned until September.

Roscommon Town solicitor Con Harlow said he was unfortunately withdrawing his services for a “highly vulnerable client”, describing the changes to the scheme as “completely unworkable”. He said that this case had appeared before the courts six times and had necessitated him making contact with a consultant psychiatrist more than 20 times on behalf of his client. The man was remanded in custody with consent to bail to Friday’s sitting of Harristown District Court. Mr Harlow asked that the accused be given continued access to psychiatric treatment on humanitarian grounds.

Other prominent local solicitors in the county also indicated they were withdrawing their services due to the dispute. Among them, Ms Bríd Miller said she was withdrawing her services for criminal cases and this was no disrespect to the judge or the court staff.

The dispute centres on the introduction of a flat fee per client regardless of the number of hearings involved in a case. These changes came into effect on Wednesday July 1st.

A statement from the Roscommon Bar Association said solicitors provided essential services to people and the “state has certain obligations to protect and vindicate peoples’ rights”.

“Further solicitors employ hundreds of people in every county of Ireland,” the association said. “It would be unheard of for such significant changes to be introduced in any other sector in such a highhanded and unilateral fashion, and ignoring the concerns and opinions of the very people that they expect to implement this scheme.”