The Business Post's Eoin O'Hare reported on August 27, 2026 that Dublin-based solicitors had pledged to continue withdrawing from criminal legal aid cases the following month in their dispute with the Minister for Justice, Jim O'Callaghan. Our criminal defence solicitors act for clients in the District Court, Circuit Court and Central Criminal Court, much of it under the criminal legal aid scheme.
More than 100 practitioners agreed at a meeting on Thursday to extend their withdrawal of services from District Court criminal legal aid cases, a spokesman said, as a result of the "ongoing impasse" over the contentious new flat-fee model introduced in July.
Ferrys' part in the decision
Ferrys Solicitors was represented at the meeting and partner Tony Collier acted as spokesman for the group. His statement was that solicitors want to be back in the courts representing clients who require legal aid, but have reluctantly decided to continue the withdrawal because the Minister is refusing to engage meaningfully with solicitors or the Law Society.
What the impasse is
The Minister has made two changes since the scheme was announced: the flat fee was raised from €455 to €520, and payment was staged rather than made wholly at the end of the case. He has refused the Law Society's proposal to allow up to five certificates where a defendant faces separate and distinct matters before the same court on the same day, saying it would reintroduce multiple certificates and weaken the basis of the new model.
For Ferrys the sticking point is not the figure but the principle that one fee covers a case however long it runs and however many prosecutions it involves. The firm's District Court legal aid clients are disproportionately people with addiction and mental health difficulties whose cases need more court time, not less.
What happens next
When the District Courts resume full sittings in September, solicitors engaged in the dispute will not take new legal aid assignments or attend garda stations under the scheme. Ferrys continues to represent existing clients assigned before July 1 and juvenile clients, and remains available, with the Law Society, to meet the Minister.