Criminal legal aid bill rockets to €85million
LAST year’s total aggregate criminal legal aid pay to solicitors and barristers totalled an eye-watering €84.91million, Department of Justice figures show.
This was an increase of €12.8million, or 17.8%, on the €72.09million total for 2022.
Michael Bowman was the country’s top-paid criminal legal aid barrister last year and has been the most in-demand defence barrister in the criminal courts for several years.
He received €772,911 in criminal legal aid payments in 2023, and his income equates to an average weekly fee of €14,863.
Last year, he represented Yousef Palani, 23, convicted of the murders of Aidan Moffitt and Michael Snee in Sligo in April 2022, and Co. Donegal man Richard Burke, 33, who beat to death his on-off partner Jasmine McMonagle, 28, in January 2019.
Last year, Dublin-based Wayne Kenny received the highest criminal legal aid pay of any solicitor, netting €882,074, while the toppaid junior counsel was Keith
Spencer with €765,954.
The Department of Justice figures for last year show that criminal legal aid payments to solicitors totalled €45.66million – a 10% increase on the 2022 payout of €41.47million. Last year, pay to barristers rose by 28% from €30.62million to €39.25million, made up of €15.59million to senior counsel and €23.66million to junior counsel.
The 2023 surge in overall barrister pay came before a 10% rise in rates came into effect on January 1. The pay-rate increase followed barristers’ effective campaign, which culminated in the Criminal Bar withdrawing its services on October 3 last in protest at the failure by the Government to reverse a 10% cut in rates imposed in 2011. The figures show that while top earners saw a rise in criminal legal aid scheme payments, more than 300 barristers on the criminal legal aid panel received less than €30,000 last year, though the bulk of these would have sources of income other than the courts. Aside from Wayne Kenny, the only other five solicitors paid more than €500,000 are Aonghus McCarthy (€704,010), Kenneth Cunningham (€669,347), Dublin-based Michael Hennessy (€660,085), John M Quinn (€657,947) and Yvonne Bambury (€600,404). The figures also show that the late Ian Bailey’s long-time lawyer, Frank Buttimer, received €401,153 in criminal legal aid payments. It was also revealed that Jonathan Dunphy, who represented Graham Dwyer in his murder trial, received €394,887 last year,.
A Department of Justice spokeswoman said: ‘One of the likely factors in the increase in expenditure on criminal legal aid is the increasing complexity of cases being heard in our courts, as well as the increasing volumes of cases coming into the Circuit Criminal Court, the Central Criminal Court and the Court of Appeal.’
She added: ‘It is a priority for the Department of Justice to ensure that the courts are resourced to administer justice efficiently and effectively for citizens.’
A spokesman for barristers’ representative body, the Bar of Ireland, said: ‘The demand for judicial and court services, and by extension counsel, reflects the needs of the public and their constitutional right to representation in circumstances where they qualify for legal aid.’
He added: ‘Alongside the delivery of legal aid services, our members continue to deliver a wide range of efficiencies and work practices right across the State that ensure the vital role of our criminal justice system can continue.’