14-month delay at Wicklow Law Centre

May 1998

CLIENTS attending Wicklow’s Law Centre are having to wait longer and longer to have their cases dealt with, the Justice Minister, Deputy John O’Donoghue, has revealed.

The 159 clients waiting to have their cases dealt with by the centre face a 14 month delay – the second longest in the country.

In January of last year, the waiting time was just seven months but by December it had already risen to 12 months, the Minister revealed in response to a question tabled in the Dail by Deputy Billy Timmins.

Only the Law Centre at South Mall in Cork now has a longer waiting time than Wicklow – but although teh client load there is almost three times greater than Wicklow’s, the waiting time is just two weeks longer.

‘Justice delayed is justice denied,’ Deputy Timmins told the Wicklow people this week.

He said he has asked that additional staff be located on either a full or temporary basis to address the crisis which has arisen in the county.

According to the figures the Minister released to the Dail, the waiting list in Wexford is only two weeks, and there are just six on the list; in Waterford, there are ten cases waiting, and a waiting time of one month; in Kilkenny, there are 33 cases waiting, and a two-month waiting list.

At present, in Wicklow, there are two solicitors, one law clerk, and two clerical staff.

Minister O’Donoghue revealed that Wicklow was originally a one-soclicitor centre – but even when an additional solicitor was appointed, this did not bring about a permanent reduction in the number of applicants on the waiting list.

Frank Brady, Assistant Chief Executive of the Legal Aid Board, confirmed that Wicklow’s waiting time was one of the longest in the country but there were a number of factors creating that situation.

One of those was the geographical area covered by the Wicklow staff and the amount of travelling that entailed; a second was its role as handler for one side in conflict cases which arise in Wexford, and a third was the sheer numbers presenting for help at Wicklow.

Mr Brady added that the numbers on the waiting list gave no indication of the number of cases actually being handled by the centre’s staff.

‘Basically, most of the work would be in the family law area. Over 90 per cent are family law cases, and that would be anything from District Court remedies such as barring orders, maintenance, access orders, to Circuit Court cases such as divorces, or judicial separations, up to High Court level, where they might be dealing with child abduction or adoption cases. And then, they would deal with other cases as well, for example, housing cases; and the travelling community have a lot of work handled too,’ he said.

With regard to the numbers currently waiting to have their cases dealt with by Wicklow Law Centre, Mr Brady explained that there is in operation a system of giving priority to urgent cases, such as those involving domestic violence.

‘ The ones on the waiting list have been analysed to see if they need priority,’ he said, pointing out that a lot of time is taken up in dealing with emergency cases.

He added that the board is currently reviewing the situation, and one measure likely to be taken is that of transferring some of the Wexford conflict work from Wicklow to the law centres at Waterford and Kilkenny.

Mr Brady said that as part of its review, the board is seeking additional staff for its law centres.

‘But I wouldn’t be promising anything at this stage. The application is for additional staff generally and we will see what the outcome is from the Department of Finance and the Government.’