FORTY YEARS after it was set up, the demand for the services of the Free Legal Advice Centres (Flac) continues to increase, according to its 2009 annual report, published yesterday. Calls from the public relating to debt trebled during the year.
The organisation, which provides legal advice and campaigns for legal rights, recorded a 10 per cent increase in calls to its telephone information line between 2008 and 2009. It also reported that calls are longer and more complex. Family law remains the largest area of inquiry for callers, accounting for 21.3 per cent, but almost one in 10 callers had queries concerning employment law or debt.
Calls on debt came both from members of the public and the Money and Budgeting Advice Service (Mabs) and Citizens Advice Centres. Calls from the pubic rose three-fold, while overall calls relating to debt doubled over the year.
Flac runs 75 legal advice centres, of which 23 are in Dublin, with more than 450 volunteers. These saw an increase in queries of 9.1 per cent over the year, with 8,730 queries in 2009, up from 7,233 in 2008. Family law was again the largest area where advice was sought, accounting for almost one-third of all inquiries, followed by employment law (15.2 per cent) and debt (5.8 per cent).
More than 90 per cent of those visiting Flac centres had not accessed any legal advice previously, either from a private solicitor or the Legal Aid Board. The State-funded board, in the main, deals with family law.
Flac has a number of specialised legal aid centres, focusing on family law, employment and immigration law, and 2009 saw the opening of two more centres in Galway and Bray. In addition to providing legal advice, Flac campaigns for greater access to justice and in 2009 published reports and lobbied on specific issues.
It continued to stress the need for comprehensive access to legal aid, and published a report, Civil Legal Aid in Ireland: Forty years on, examining the scope of the existing provision, the practice and funding of the Legal Aid Board, financial eligibility to qualify for civil legal aid, and a study of unmet legal need in Dublin.
Its highest profile campaign was on mortgage arrears and debt, where it published a major report, urging the end of imprisonment for the non-payment of debt and the refocusing of the debt enforcement regime to take into account people’s ability to pay. It has made a submission to the Law Reform Commission’s ongoing report on debt enforcement.
Along with a number of other non-governmental organisations, it prepared a report on the direct provision system for asylum-seekers, concluding the existing system infringes the human rights of those in direct provision in a number of ways.
In 2009 Flac was instrumental in setting up the Public Interest Law Alliance, with an advisory panel of legal experts from both Ireland and abroad. Its objective is to promote the use of law in the public interest for the advancement of human rights, and the benefit of the marginalised and disadvantaged.
The alliance has established a range of international contacts with public interest law firms and organisations, especially in the US, where the provision of advice on a pro bono basis is part of the work of many major legal firms. It is seeking to involve legal firms in Ireland in a similar scheme.
Flac helped to set up the Travellers Law Centre.