Ferrys Solicitors partner Tony Collier featured prominently in RTÉ's July 9, 2026 report on the criminal legal aid dispute, as the High Court indicated it was "80% likely" to hear a challenge to the new payment scheme on July 30 and 31. Our criminal defence team represents legally aided clients in the District Court every day and is directly affected by the scheme at the centre of this dispute.
Mr Collier pointed to the adjournment of 10 out of 12 rape or sexual assault cases listed before the Central Criminal Court on Monday, July 6. He said a backlog of cases was building up and the longer the dispute went on, the worse it would get.
He is among a large number of solicitors who wrote to the Chief Justice and the presidents of the various courts expressing concern that the constitutional rights of accused people were being breached by the State's failure to provide legal representation.
Mr Collier said solicitors were anxious to go back to work, but it was not viable to do so under the new scheme.
The State's obligation
Mr Collier said it was the obligation of the State to provide solicitors to those who do not have the means to pay for them, and that solicitors were merely providing a service on behalf of the Government.
He said the Minister had claimed there were plenty of solicitors ready to replace those on the criminal legal aid panel, but the current difficulties in court showed that was clearly not the case.
This is the core of Ferrys' position in the dispute. The firm's criminal defence solicitors want to be representing clients. The State sets the terms on which legal aid is provided, and on July 1 it replaced payment per appearance (just over €239 for the first, almost €60 for each subsequent hearing) with a flat €520 per client regardless of appearances. Ferrys says that scheme cannot be worked.
The wider picture
Courts Service figures showed 55 solicitors had resigned from the panel in the first week of the scheme. The Courts Service put the panel at 885 solicitors on July 1, a figure solicitors say is inflated by practitioners who have died, become judges or moved to the DPP's office.
One solicitor said the criminal courts had "effectively come to a standstill". Sinn Féin's Matt Carthy called on the Government to suspend the changes. Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke stood over them.
A judge dealing with a Laois murder case described the lack of representation for the accused in custody as "disgraceful"; the Law Society said it would write to him. In Kildare, Judge Desmond Zaidan said "75%" of adjournments in his court were "state failures" and that it was "morally wrong to blame all lawyers for delays".
The High Court challenge, brought by Dublin solicitor John Quinn, seeks to quash the statutory instrument underpinning the new scheme.