The income threshold for legal aid is to be increased and the means test process to be simplified. The announcement was made on behalf of the Minister for Justice at the 21st anniversary conference of the Legal Aid Board in Tralee this weekend.
Under new financial criteria, allowances are to be increased and the level of disposable income is to be raised from £7,350 to £10,000. The number of headings under which an applicant's means is assessed will be reduced from 15 to six.
"I expect that these changes will make legal services available to a greater number of people," Mr Steve Magner, assistant secretary at the Department of Justice, said.
The Legal Aid Board provides legal services from a network of 30 full-time law centres and 14 part-time law centres nationwide. Some 89 solicitors are approved for the board.
Grant-in-aid for this year stands at £13.7 million. This year over £8 million has been provided in the estimates for the Refugee Legal Service (RLS) which was set up in 1999 by the Legal Aid Board.
A staff of 140, including 22 solicitor posts has now been approved for the RLS, and 6,568 applicants have registered.
The Minister for Finance has given approval for solicitors and barristers from private practice to represent applicants at appeals hearings, the Minister for Justice conveyed. Ms Justice Mary Laffoy said increases in legal aid allowances and levels would go towards remedying "unduly restrictive and exclusionary" criteria for financial eligibility.
The Legal Aid Board had increased access to justice over the past 21 years, she said. But the legal profession too had facilitated access to justice by taking on cases on a pro bono or no fee basis. However, solicitors or barristers rarely got praise for the work they did for no remuneration.
Subjects including Travellers, racism, immigrants and children and women were among topics discussed in the run-up to the new Human Rights Commission, Mr Justice Donal Barrington, president-elect of the Human Rights Commission, said. Because of its cross-Border dimension, the Irish Human Rights Commission is being watched closely by Europe in the context of new states lining up for membership. Many of these contained significant minorities with allegiances to neighbouring states. If the commission worked here, it would be imitated elsewhere in Europe, Mr Justice Barrington said. The new commission would have wide-ranging powers, including that to set up tribunals of investigation similar to the Flood and Moriarty tribunals, he said. It would be restrained by budgets but adequate resources were needed if the Human Rights Commission was to work properly, a number of speakers said.