Criminal legal aid panel lawyers rise to 825 ahead of contentious €455 'one accused, one fee' payment
Gordon Deegan
The number of solicitors on the Criminal Legal Aid panel has increased by 23 per cent over the past two years to 825 ahead of contentious Government plans to introduce a new €455 'one accused, one fee' payment.
New figures provided by Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan show that the number of solicitors on the criminal legal panel at the end of 2025 totalled 825 which was an increase of 23pc on the 672 at the end of 2023.
The Department of Justice is pressing ahead with the new system from July 1st despite warnings from the Law Society that the flat fee payment system will lead to an ‘exodus’ of solicitors from criminal legal aid work and undermine the right to a fair trial.
The current system provides for solicitors being paid €239.38 per appearance per accused, and €59.86 for each subsequent court appearance.
However, in new figures provided to Fianna Fáil TD Padraig O’Sullivan, Minister O’Callaghan has also revealed that the number of barristers has increased only marginally to 760 in 2025.
O’Callaghan stated that the number of barristers on the criminal legal aid scheme at the end of 2023 was 740 before dipping to 712 in 2024. The numbers increased to 760 last year.
The minister is making the reforms against the background of overall criminal legal aid expenditure across all courts increasing by 35pc from €89.4m to €120.6m last year.
Lawyers shared €115.3m of the €120.6m total as three defence lawyers earned almost €1m each (all figures incl VAT).
The remaining €5.3m of the criminal legal aid was made up of ancillary payments including general expenses, expert witness fees and translation/interpretation fees.
However, in his reply, O’Callaghan stated that the proposed reform “is not intended to reduce the cost to the State of providing criminal legal aid”.
He said: “It is instead intended to make the system work better for all concerned, by making it more efficient, reducing unnecessary adjournments, simplifying administration and speeding up case resolution.
“The reform of the criminal legal aid fee structure in the District Court is aimed primarily at improving efficiencies, speeding up case resolution, and reducing unnecessary adjournments, while ensuring fair and sustainable remuneration for legal practitioners."
O’Callaghan stated that a review of 350,000 district court cases in 2023 and 2022 identified a number of structural issues in the administration of criminal legal aid.
He said that these include payment per appearance which incentivises additional adjournments; multiple certificates granted for related cases increase costs and complexity and multiple solicitors assigned in the same firm for related charges.
He said that the review also found cases with criminal legal aid take an average of 313 calendar days to complete, compared to 133 days for cases without; that the weighted average appearances for cases with Criminal Legal Aid is five, while the weighted average appearances without Criminal Legal Aid is just over three and cases with Criminal Legal Aid take significantly longer than those without, the outcomes are similar.
O’Callaghan confirmed that further submissions have been received from the Law Society and the Bar Council on March 27th and April 2nd respectively.
He said: “Together with my officials, I am currently considering the content of these submissions and will continue to engage with the Law Society and Bar Council in advance of the introduction of the new arrangements on July 1st."
