Solicitors claim barristers face blacklisting threats over legal aid dispute

The allegations come as the dispute over justice minister Jim O’Callaghan’s new payment model threatens to disrupt the courts for a second consecutive week, with a further three-day withdrawal of services planned.

In a letter to the minister, solicitors David Harrington and Phelim O’Neill of Harringtons solicitors said barristers should be “free to exercise their own independent professional judgment without intimidation, coercion or commercial retaliation”.

Mr O’Neill said he was aware of junior barristers “being warned that they will be blacklisted if they continue to accept instructions from firms that have not withdrawn services”.

Hundreds of solicitors have withdrawn from the criminal legal aid panel in protest at the flat-fee scheme introduced this month, under which solicitors receive €520 per client regardless of the number of court appearances. The previous system paid around €240 for the first appearance and €60 for each subsequent hearing.

The Law Society has described the new model as “unworkable”, and hundreds of District Court cases were adjourned last week as a result of the action.

Mr O’Callaghan has agreed to meet the Law Society but has repeatedly ruled out reversing the reforms. More than 80 Dublin criminal legal aid solicitors met on Friday ahead of Monday’s talks with the minister.

Mr O’Neill, however, said support for the boycott was not unanimous and described the new fixed fee as “fair and, indeed, generous”.

“In my own experience, firms have been instructed not to swear affidavits prepared by my office because I declined to participate in the withdrawal,” he wrote to the minister. “In my respectful view, such conduct raises serious concerns regarding anti-competitive practices within the profession.”

Mr O’Neill, who received €433,000 from the State’s criminal legal aid scheme in 2023, has also sought a separate meeting with Mr O’Callaghan.

“It is important that you hear from practitioners whose views are not reflected either by the Law Society or by those leading the current withdrawal of services,” he wrote.

He told the Sunday Independent: “My principal concern is for vulnerable clients who need legal representation and are now at risk of being abandoned by the lawyers assigned to protect their interests.

“Whatever the merits of the dispute over criminal legal aid fees, it is unconscionable to use vulnerable accused persons, children, victims and witnesses as leverage by disrupting cases that are already before the courts.

“Solicitors have duties to their clients and to the administration of justice which cannot simply be set aside as part of an industrial campaign.”