A BARRISTER from Macroom says the profession has lost faith in the government’s willingness to find a solution to a dispute over fees, with barristers to go on strike later this year.
The Council of The Bar of Ireland has recommended withdrawal of services to its members ‘in pursuit of a meaningful, independent and time-limited mechanism to determine the fees payable to barristers by the Director of Public Prosecutions and under the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) scheme’.
All courts where criminal work is undertaken will be affected by the dispute, which takes place on Tuesday October 3rd.
Aoife O’Leary BL from Macroom said: ‘Barristers are being treated differently to other members of the criminal justice system. Despite delivering a range of changed work practices and reforms that have delivered significant efficiencies for the criminal justice system, the government has refused to recognise this by means of fee restoration.
‘The Bar of Ireland has been attempting to engage with Government on this matter for seven years and, having exhausted every avenue available to them, we have now lost confidence in government’s commitment to the preservation of the highest standards in the administration of justice and in the existing mechanism for determining the fees payable to barristers practising criminal law.’
Barristers will now implement an initial one-day withdrawal of services on Tuesday October 3rd 2023.
Fees paid to barristers by the State through the Office of the DPP and through the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme remain below 2002 levels in nominal terms, following a range of cuts applied during the financial emergency, the Council of the Bar in Ireland says.
They say that in 2008, the government unilaterally broke the link between fees paid to barristers with increases applied under public sector pay agreements. ‘Factoring in inflation, barristers practising before the criminal courts have suffered a pay cut in real terms of more than 40% over the past 20 years while every other sector working in the criminal justice system has seen pay restoration implemented,’ they said in a statement.
