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CRIMINAL BARRISTERS ACROSS Ireland are withdrawing their services tomorrow in a protest against the lack of progress on pay restoration, in the first of three days of withdrawal this month.
This comes following a recommendation from The Council of The Bar of Ireland last month.
Protests will take place tomorrow at 16 courthouses nationwide where criminal cases were due to be heard on the day, including Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Limerick, Mayo, Longford, Meath, Sligo, Tipperary, Wicklow, Waterford, and Wexford.
The withdrawal of services is an escalation on the action taken by criminal barristers across the country on October 3 of last year, with the aim of seeking 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”.
Following the withdrawal last October, a 10% restoration was subsequently announced in Budget 2024.
The Bar of Ireland has said that even after this, the full range of Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (FEMPI) cuts that were applied across the public sector between the years 2009 and 2015 continue to apply to the profession.
This is despite a government commissioned review in 2018 that acknowledged that a reversal of the cuts was justified given the level of reform and flexibilities delivered by the profession.
Chair of the Council of the Bar of Ireland, Sara Phelan SC, said it was “with regret” that it had recommended another withdrawal of services.
“No barrister wishes to be in this position, but we have been left with no choice. The government has just reported the unwinding of FEMPI legislation this month, yet FEMPI-era cuts still apply to our profession,” she said.
She said that barristers are treated differently to others in the criminal justice system, and that they are seeking fairness and appropriate investment in the system.
The ball is in the government’s court.
Chair of the Criminal State Bar Committee Sean Guerin SC said that it was a case of social justice.
“It has been acknowledged in government that there is ‘no good reason’ why fees of criminal barristers haven’t been restored, yet eight months on from a commitment to establish a process reviewing the fees, no meaningful progress has been made,” he said.
The Bar of Ireland is the representative body for the barristers’ profession in Ireland, and is governed by the Constitution of The Bar of Ireland. The Bar of Ireland is the term used to describe the independent referral bar that has a current membership of approximately 2,150 practising barristers.
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God love them, has anyone ever seen a poor barrister. Great country in that it’s nearly always the most entitled looking for more money, barristers, pilots etc.
@The Firestarter: yes, but only in the criminal law courts. But it’s the long term people should be worried about, if new law graduates don’t practice in the criminal courts then the pool for judges in the criminal courts gets smaller and you end up with lengthy delays in hearings. You really want a repeat of what is happening in England and Wales now.
@The Firestarter: you never see a poor barrister because only wealthy people can afford to train as barristers. Do you really want a judiciary from only the top wealthiest strata of society?
@The Firestarter: I have seen many poor barristers. Drop out rate from the Bar is 70% in the first 5 years of practice.
@helen mary fitzsimons: another false assumption there Helen.
A) lots of people who don’t come from wealth work hard to become Barristers and succeed
B) contrary to the posters suggestion there are lots of poor Barristees
I can bet they are on a pretty penny as it is.
@Itsme83: They are not actually. Barristers are self employed. They do not get paid until a case in the courts is over. They have overheads, wages to staff. Any junior council starting off are not well paid.
@Dave Barrett: You are wrong there, they are well paid, but because they are self employed they need to wait to be paid. They start at about 40k only going one direction.
@marklars81: if a criminal case was, just say, to 1 year and a half to go to court, it’s a long tíme waiting for Yr Money to come in.
@marklars81: To be honest I’m not sure many practicing Criminal Law wait very long, I think they’re paid fairly promptly their legal aid fees. The issue is that 40K might be what they’re bringing in, even in year one but they’ve significant outlays that say an executive officer (trainee manger grade for non graduates) in the Civil Service does not. An EO would start on 37K and get an increment every year and at least one payrise. Are we seriously suggesting that barristers shouldn’t be paid more than a junior civil servant or retail manager?
@marklars81: this is completely incorrect. Barristers start on….€0. Nothing. Nada. That’s what’s self employed means.
If barristers started on 40k there’d be thousands more of them.
@Dave Barrett: this is also incorrect – criminal cases of the kind you’re describing are paid relatively promptly by the state directly to counsel – usually within a few weeks of the arraignment.
@Mark Anthony Savage: let’s be very clear.
New Barristers are NOT getting 40k. They don’t get a salary of any kind. starting out in the District Court they’ll be lucky to pull in 5-10k per year
@Jack B Quick: I’m well aware which is why I’m in the Civil Service but who knows some magical creature who Deviled for the right person with the right connections might. I remember interning for one of the criminal firms and feeling guilty when one of the barristers who was doing bail applications and showing me around, bought me a coffee and a slice of cake.
@Jack B Quick: again wrong, as we’ve got all so nit picky, competitive with the hair splitting. They’ve outlays, especially year one so they’re on negative money, paying to even do the job in some cases.
@Mark Anthony Savage: nothing I’ve said is wrong. Barristers of course have outlays. They have to pay to be a member of the law library for example.
Who said they don’t have outlays? What they don’t have is salaried income. The income they do make, certainly for the first 5-7 years, is unreliable, sporadic and very very low.
Pilots and now Barristers. Do these deluded people realise there are workers clocking up 60 hours a week for probably little more than 30k a year who didn’t have mammy and daddy money leaving school to set them up in college for a cushy gig in life. They’d have a genuine reason to protest not these folk.
@Dan The Man: spoken like a man that has never had to work 2 jobs to pay back a college loan or the cost of putting yourself through flight school
@and the hit’s just keep coming: is this you pretending pilots and barristers are working 2 jobs? In my profession everyone has minimum 2 degrees, I’ve got 3. I don’t work 2 jobs and earn a fraction of them.
@Dan The Man: Nobody is working 60 hours a week for 30k a year, and if they were, I would strongly advise them to contact a trade union as a) they are being paid below the legal minimum wage of €12.70 an hour and b) they are working more than the 48 hour maximum working week.
@Eoin .h: so your solution is to have everybody earning what you earn? Great idea
@Eoin .h: 3 degrees … half way to separation so …
@Kevin Collins:
While you’re right on the minimum wage you are a bit naive about the hours, not difficult to get around.
Averaged between 57 and 62 hours all through my 20s and 30s (starting late 1990s) but it meant by 43 I could cut it to 20 hours and watch my kids grow.
@P. J.: EU rules on the max 48 hour working week for employees came into effect in 2004 and are based on a rolling 4 month weekly average. There are a variety of exemptions and they don’t apply to the self-employed for obvious reasons, but basically these rules mean that most people can’t (legally) be forced to work above this limit. Bloody EU, forcing us to spend time with our friends and loved ones, just where do they think they get off, eh?!
@Dan The Man: Barristers are an odd breed that do generally have money behind them (it’s impossible to get into the job otherwise, Deviling is generally unpaid) but the vast majority would do 60+ hours a week for less than 30K for a few years atleast It’s the nature of the job.
@Mark Anthony Savage: I don’t know where you get your information. It’s almost all wrong.
Barristers doing 60 hours a week! On what?
Barristers are self employed. If they’re practicing in criminal law then they’re getting work. If they’re getting so much work they need to do 60 hours a week then in reality they’re probably doing well.
If Barristers aren’t working (which is most of them certainly at a. Junior level) they’re not doing 60 hours and they’re broke.
@Eoin .h: many Barristers work two jobs. Pilots don’t so far as I’m aware. There’s trick rules about flight time and rest.
Lots of criminal barristers starting out will have to work a second job such as lecturing to make money.
@Jack B Quick: I didn’t say they were doing their core work for 60 hours a week. Although if youre engaged in significant research you might clock up hours that way. They could be teaching, I was mainly taught at undergrad by relatively new quals, they maybe doing significant travel, they might be working behind a very different type of bar (which I believe isn’t allowed but open to correction). I think you’re a little too quick to jump down my throat their skippy, cool your jets and think it through, that’s twice now you’ve incorrectly pulled me up totally missing the point.
@Mark Anthony Savage: you said that vast majority are going 60hours per week for less than 30k.
I think it’s reasonable for me to assume given the topic under discussion that you were referring to work at the Bar as opposed to bloody gardening or something.
Are their Barristers going 60 hours a week in some other profession? No.
Are there Barristers going 60 hours per week between the Bar and some other profession. Possibly. I doubt it. When you say doing hours do you mean sitting around the cri
Final courts hoping the hope will ring? Does that count?
The reality is that junior barristers spend a lot of time just hanging around. That can be with nothing to do or waiting for a case to be called which can take a whole morning. Is that “working” an “hour”?
It’s vital people understand how this system works and why they’re striking. It’s factually completely untrue for people to say they’re all minted and a mischaracterisation for you to suggest they’re all “working” 60 hours a week.
Barristers… Pilots….the down trodden of this country eh!!!
@damien leen: pilots earn a salary – a very good one. Barristers don’t.
Need more bistro for the gravy
It seems that everyone and their cow is protesting for pay.
Yet everyone and that same cow went to vote in mass a few weeks ago in favor of the same parties that are in government, which they are protesting.
How does that work?
@GoodBrother: yep rich boy Barrett and smurphy would do a great job, now which of them is turning on the tap!
@GoodBrother: Well I doubt increasing the Bars pay was top of Sinn Féin’s agenda in fairness
Read that as baristas and thought the country would close down, luckily its just the baristers
@Fionnuala Kenny: If you’re going to steal jokes, Rake is not a bad place to steal them from :)
Between the pilots and the barristers…. When are the bank managers, princes and kings going on strike?
I propose a gofundme page to help them out..
Funny one that, headlines last week:
Boy who settled personal injuries case for €17,500 only gets €8,000 after costs. The child got less than them. The elves must have taken it !
@Damien Fitzpatrick: what has that to do with the Criminal Bar?
@Damien Fitzpatrick: That’s a Civil Case and you may note that barristers on the Civil side are conspicuously absent on this. There’s myriad issues with the Civil side many of which have been caused by insurance companies / lobby. Not that a) there isn’t significant cashing in by the legal professionals but b) it’s all roses over there either. Barristers in Civil case are the ones who may wait years to get paid, if they even get paid at all. I think there is some talk of Civil Legal aid reform but that’ll as popular as Roderic O’Gorman at destruction derby.
The greed never ends
Anybody who has witnessed these souless vultures tear into a victim of crime will not shed a tear. Criminal defence are particularly dead inside
@G: We have an adversarial legal process, the other option is inquisitorial and some legal systems that operate that model in the Civil Courts operate adversarial in the Criminal Courts. It appears to be the best system for avoiding as many miscarriages of justice as possible, but like everything it’s not perfect. What definitely won’t perfect it is not allowing a vigorous defence of an accused.
Barristers, in the main aren’t highly paid. There are, of course exceptions and I doubt there are many Senior Council that are struggling but a JC can struggle to break even for years post qualification. You only need to look at Civil Service positions at around the 50K mark for legal professionals where a decent Facilities Manager would potentially be at AP grade starting at 77.5K. I could do my BL and move to legal in my department, but it’s only one trade higher than what I do now which I’ll get anyway so what’s the point.
Wigs on the green!!’
The amount of working people that do the ffgs dity deeds of insuring division within irish society, To prevent solidarity and help keep thier greasy fingers on the control of power ,
@Robert Halvey: Do you ever go a day without mentioning and blaming FFG for everything in your life? You’re like a broken record.
Oh dear!
A relief to rape victims not to be questioned about what clothes they were wearing.
@Charlie Arum: no, a relief to alleged criminals, a trials will delayed and witness get confused
We are so lucky to have so many enlightened and educated users of the journal who are experts in everything, including the bar and the exact earnings of all those called to it.
I wish all workers well in their endeavours to ensure fair pay.
Oh no. Who will argue the minutiae of the legal system charging thousands for their interpretation. This could mean that common sense might be applied. God forbid but we are doomed
@mickey mac: Barristers don’t “charge” anything for criminal work. The state sets the fee and pays it.
@Jack B Quick: If I was a zillionaire and wanted specific counsel I assume I could pay them direct (obviously through instructing a solicitor). Genuine question. I assume the numbers doing that (if it’s even possible) are vanishingly small?
@Mark Anthony Savage: the USA Style “pay for talent” is virtually unheard of here.
The vast vast majority of criminal cases are paid through legal aid. In reality almost the entirety of criminal proceedings. Hence the strike. There’s only one pay master – the State. So they set the price. Not the Barrsiters.
Now the hypothetical millionaire doesn’t qualify for legal aid so yes, they have to pay private sector prices for the top Barristers. Such cases are vanishingly rare however.
Barristers in crime make their money from legal aid which is a volume business. The top guys earning 500k/600k per year do so due the number of briefs they get. Not because 3 or 4 briefs happen to pay €125k each. Usually. There’s always exceptions. But that is mostly how it works.
First the pilots now the barristers…. Engineers will be next.
@marklars81: you’re not wrong there, looming aviation engineer shortage and the US obsession with ‘College’ has meant that the skilled worker sector is struggling to recruit, but it’s symptomatic of issues globally. Some survey done recently that put a lift repairman at 100K with almost 100% employment and a graduate engineer at something like 50 or 60, assuming they even get a job out of college and don’t end up working in Starbucks.
They’re only on two grand an hour.
@Pat Barry: it really is insane the level of certainty on subjects about which people know nothing.
Seriously Pat, is it so hard to say “hmmm I’ve no idea what Barristers get paid or even what they are, maybe I should find out”
@Jack B Quick: This is from experience, I required the service of one for a group of people and that is what I was told they cost by a solicitor.
@Pat Barry: Pat in fairness that sounds like a Civil Case and a complicated one at that. There’s nothing (but geography since the CCJ was built) stopping barristers practicing Civil and Criminal Law (I’m sure jack will vigorously correct me if I’m wrong) but generally they don’t and the Criminal side is massively underpaid. Now don’t get me wrong, the system needs reform in my view but if you’re looking for a top end barrister in a specialist area they’re gonna look for the ching ching and so would you.
@Pat Barry: no you weren’t. That’s a straight up lie. Or your solicitor was lying.
And in addition it would be a civil case. Not a criminal case. Read the article.
Can we be clear on a few things:
1) barristers are self employed. They do not get a salary from the state of any kind. Not 40k, or 50k or any other kind of K.
2) they are paid per “case” in which they represent a client. How much are they paid per case? That depends on whether it’s District Court (low), Circuit Court (middle), or Central (Highest)
3) barristers starting out in their careers get NO cases: why? No ones heard of them. They have no experience. As a consequence they earn NOTHING. It is a long slow process to try and establish yourself and get work. It takes YEARS – that means years before you break even.
4) legal aid fees were cut as part of the GFC. They were never restored (unlike other public sector cuts). As a consequence junior barristers are even more impoverished than they were.
5) while many Barristers at the top earn a lot of money in criminal law, in reality 70-80% of the profession quit because they cannot afford to stay.
@Jack B Quick: Now who is getting it wrong? As far as I can recall they’re paid fees during the case, not at the end and just because people are guessing at what someone might be pulling in doesn’t mean they think it’s a salary. Woolworths wasn’t on a salary when it pulled in 300 quid on Tuesday from pick and mix.
@Mark Anthony Savage: Hmmm so it seems you can’t edit posts but again on attrition let’s not kid ourselves, many do the BL for reasons other than practice, it’s a bloody brilliant course from all accounts, I would be fairly sure though that of the ones the do practice 70% drop out but again, they don’t die or work in Starbucks they’ve options for salaried roles in any number of sectors, they can convert to solicitors etc. I fully support the demands for pay, but one of the issues here is the whole system needs reform. I genuinely believe you’re passionate about this and are bringing knowledge from inside the field, so genuinely what are your thoughts on wholesale reform?
@Mark Anthony Savage: I’m not getting anything wrong Mark I assure you.
BLs are paid during the case yes. they get paid after the arraignment, and then per day in court; and for the sentencing. The state is a reliable (if low) payer so a few weeks is usually all it takes. That’s the Circuit or Central Courts. Things are more complicated at District level.
Barristers don’t get a salary and comparing them to pick and mix at Woolworths is incomprehensible.
@Jack B Quick: I’d coming across as you are if your purpose is to try and explain the situation is something you’re getting wrong, but look you do you. On the other hand I thank you for answering my question on the point about engagement in criminal law re private payment, I genuinely wondered that. In regard to my point on reform I think a move towards that will have to come to get fees where they need to be, I notice the current requests by barristers seem conspicuously reasonable, perhaps there is a certain amount of boat rocking that’s undesirable?
@Mark Anthony Savage: it is genuinely infuriating the absolute rubbish spouted on here concerning a profession on which they know nothing.
Reform is problematic. I’m all for reform but don’t pretend to know how it would work.
The reality is that those with influence are senior and doing well. They are therefore fundamentally opposed to reform because the system is now working in their favour rather than against them.
Criminal legal aid is probably the best value service the tax payer gets. It’s phenomenal. However administration of justice is undermined because very few barristers can sustain the lack of income. That means fewer professionals, less competition, less expertise and slower access to justice.
The rates being paid and the manner in which they’re paid undermines criminal defence work. How you fix that? Very difficult to say.
But as it stands an accused has free access to the finest legal practitioners in the country assuming they can’t afford them which most people cannot. (Case in point Paul Murphy TD on 70k?? Per year got legal aid).
God love them!
I’ve seen it all now.
Have they joined an order that requires a vow of poverty? Why else would they protest against pay?
@Padraig O’Brien: To be honest you get to wear a cape at work so there should be some sacrifices. I’m pretty sure the wigs are optional now but even more dress up fun.
How can you write an article about pay and not research how much they are currently making, and inquire how much they want to be paid?
@G C: They’re not “paid” anything in the way you mean – there’s no salary. They’re paid per case, and the amount depends on which court they’re in. Every Barrister earns something different as a result. So the Journal can’t tell you what they “make” as in the case of the pilots for example.
The Bar are asking for the different rates per case to be increased to the level they were at before the financial crisis – rates were cut then. That would only put them back to where they were 15 years ago. The Bar also want an increase on top of that.
Would it surprise you to learn that a district court case pays at most €65 for example (give or take)
have your say