Continuing disruption to Kildare court business over solicitors strike

There was continuing disruption to the processing of court cases at the local district court this week.

A significant number of cases continued to be adjourned at Naas Courthouse because of the dispute between solicitors and the Department of Justice over how the Criminal Legal Aid schemes.

Only a handful of solicitors attended court and only a few cases were dealt with or finalised.

The State wants to pay a flat fee of €455 per individual, regardless of how many times the case comes before the court. Under the current rules, legal representatives are paid for each appearance - though the payments vary in size as the case goes through the system.

Current solicitors are paid a fee of €240 for a first appearance, with an additional €60 for every appearance after that.

They have the support of the Law Society, which is the educational, representative, and regulatory body for the solicitors in Ireland.

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The new payments system came on stream last week.

In the meantime Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan has said that he is willing to increase the flat fee - but a return to the previous system of an initial fee and payments for each subsequent appearance by a solicitor on behalf of a client is unlikely.

There is speculation that the flat fee could be increased by about €130 and if so this would bring it to just over €580 a case.

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