More strikes by barristers cannot be ruled out after an 8 per cent restoration of criminal legal aid fees in Budget 2025 fell well short of their expectations.
According to legal sources, many criminal barristers were “livid” because they expected more comprehensive fee restoration and a binding mechanism to determine fees. “Eight per cent is paltry, nowhere near enough, we are furious, and people are calling for more strikes,” said one barrister.
The 8 per cent pay restoration will apply from January 1st, 2025. It follows a 10 per cent restoration provided in Budget 2024.
Fine Gael Senator Barry Ward, a barrister, said on Tuesday he “absolutely understood” the barristers’ dismayed response and hoped the Government “will take it on board”.
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The Bar of Ireland, in its pre-budget submission, urged restoration of the full range of Financial Emergency Measures in Public Interests (Fempi)-era cuts to criminal barristers working for the State, plus restoration of the link with national wage agreements, to prevent “further erosion of the real value of pay” for criminal lawyers.
Its fees campaign included an unprecedented nationwide withdrawal of service by barristers in October 2023, followed by two further days of strike action this year.
The action was aimed at securing “an independent, meaningful, time-limited and binding mechanism” to determine the fees paid to criminal barristers by the Director of Public Prosecutions and under the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Scheme.
A 10 per cent restoration of fees announced in Budget 2024 last October represented an unwinding of the 10 per cent cut applied to barristers in 2011, but the Bar complained the full range of Fempi-era cuts continue to apply to the profession.
When announcing Budget 2024, the Government committed to a review process looking at the structure and level of fees paid to criminal barristers but, up to Budget 2025, the Bar complained about a continuing “impasse”.
In a statement last week, its chairman Seán Guerin SC said that, despite the acknowledged co-operation of barristers in ongoing reform and improvement of the administration of criminal justice over years, barristers “continue to be treated differently to others in the criminal justice system and indeed to society at large”.
