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CRIMINAL BARRISTERS ACROSS Ireland are withdrawing their services today in protest against the lack of progress on pay restoration.
It’s the first of three days of withdrawal this month, with services also due to be withdrawn on Monday, 15 July and Wednesday, 24 July.
This comes following a recommendation from The Council of The Bar of Ireland last month to undertake industrial action in a bid to restore cuts to criminal legal aid funding.
No cases will be heard in Criminal Courts today, and there will also be protests on the steps of the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin and at a further 15 courthouses nationwide.
The withdrawal of services is an escalation on the action taken by criminal barristers across the country on October 3 of last year.
Following the first ever strike by criminal barristers in October, a 10% restoration was subsequently announced in Budget 2024.
The Government also committed to reviewing the structure and level of fees paid.
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.
Sean Guerin SC, Chair of the Criminal State Bar Committee, said that until the 10% pay restoration was introduced in January, pay rates were at 2002 levels.
He told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that there had been an effective pay cut of over 40%, and that the 10% pay restoration “has improved it but we’ve still suffered an effective 30% plus pay cut”.
“If complete pay restoration took place in the morning, the effect of inflation since 2008 would still have reduced barristers pay by 15 or 16%,” said Guerrin.
“We’re not looking for that back, we’re not looking for a pay increase, we’re looking for pay restoration.
“The cuts that were introduced in 2009, when everyone bore the pain of the recession, we bore an additional 10% pay cut that didn’t apply to others, and we’re simply asking for those emergency era measures to be reversed.”
He said there will be “some very short delays” as a result of the action taking place today and later this month and that barristers “deeply regret” this.
But he added that these delays are happening “because we continue to cooperate with significant improvements in the criminal justice system” since 2018 without the restoration of pay cuts.
“Every other sector has had pay restoration in return for like cooperation,” said Guerrin.
He also remarked that Justice Minister Helen McEntee has said there is “there is no good reason why pay restoration hasn’t taken place”.
“We’ve been waiting now since 2016, but at least in 2018 it was acknowledged that we had met the conditions for pay restoration.
“There is no good reason in our view why the government couldn’t give a commitment to resolve this long, outstanding unfairness and implement it in the budget.”
And while Guerrin remarked that “some barristers are very well paid”, he added that “most of them are not” and that the profession is losing people at the junior level as a result.
“Two thirds of those who begin practicing criminal law will give up that practice within six years,” said Guerrin.
“That has long term consequences in having available in the future a cohort of barristers who have the training, education, and the experience necessary to handle the most difficult and sensitive cases.”
He added that pay rates “vary from case to case” but said that the “real issue is that until the 10% pay restoration was introduced, pay rates were at 2002 levels”.
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The richest country in Europe again depending on charity and volunteers to solve a crisis the people who govern us will ramble back mid January with no vision and same mantra thank god for these wonderful volunteers who have worked free over the Christmas with donations from ordinary decent people to keep these vital services going and doing the work of politians
@Stephen Byrne: any country in Europe who don’t have charities? Charities that exponentially increase their activity during Christmas?
@Stephen Byrne: if it was easy for politicians to spend taxpayers money on every good cause I gather they would
@Stephen Byrne:
More then 24 differant “homeless” charity’s in Dublin alone. Employing over 700 people offering below that number in beds.
Time to clean up the charitie industry.
Then the money donated wll go to the ones who need it.
@Darius Guppy: An excellent example is GoBanyo in Germany, founded by a formerly homeless man, he brought the Duschbus to the streets.
Kitted out with three private bathrooms, one wheelchair accessible, people can look after their personal hygiene.
@Temp Stuff: Instead the fools squander it on bike sheds, bus stops fax machines, travel etc. Don’t mention the hospital. If there was any accountability in this kip, heads would roll and dubious reputations laid to rest.
Jaysus, Glen Hansard would show up at the opening of a phone box
@Niall Boyle: Jaysus, this same comment shows up every year on this same article.
Nearly 15000 people homeless in Ireland now, thanks people for voting Ff and FG back in government, well done.
@Bills n Stuff: And horribly high numbers in the six counties, too.
@Bills n Stuff: you’re welcome
@Bills n Stuff: 15,000 living in FREE ACCOMODATION.
@Bills n Stuff:
Less then a thousand people in the country sleep on the streets. And there is a bed in a hostal for all of them.
Father Mc Ferry? Has stated on radio that when they send out a van to collect someone, by the time they get there someone will have given the person a tent, a sleeping bag, and sandwiches and they are no longer interested in heading back to the hostal.
@Athena: How much did they squander on a Children’s hospital? Nothing.
Little wonder they don’t want anything to do with this 26 pantomime.
Eh you forgot to mention the little known Dermot Kennedy who also showed up to play some tunes!
Government spending money on everything but the homeless and especially on themselves with exorbitant pensions salaries and expenses
@Pauline Cahill:
This is a great chance for the lefty left and Typhoid Mary to pull a good news story by living on the average industrial wage and donating the differance to a homeless charity.
Bunch of chancers will go home to their big homes in the nicer parts of Dublin and preach to the rest of us for the rest of the year.
What happened to the surplus home sweet home money donated.
We were promised the accounts would be made public a number of years ago.
Glen Hansard and age gaps with the women he’s with are very suspect, especially your own from Once. Would rather not have him celebrated still
@Lewis Armstrong: try that again.
@Philip Kennedy: he was being polite. Theres a persistent rumor that Hansard is a creep and dated underage girls in his 30s, allegedly..
Temp stuff a home is an necessity and if previous governments were doing their job 15000 people wouldn’t be homeless of which over 4000 are children how are your kids tonight volunteers work aloside people earning big money
@Stephen Byrne:
Yunkies, drunks and wife beaters are not intitled to taxpayers money. That’s the job of charities.
@H Woo: What a pathetic comment.
The Cranberries dedicated their song Linger to Glen Hansard. He’s akin to that silent flatulence after a spud dinner that just won’t go away.
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