Civil Legal Aid in Ireland: 40 Years On

Civil Legal Aid in Ireland: 40 Years On is a report produced by Edel Quinn, FLAC Legal Researcher with statistics on FLAC centres and information line analysed by Gillian Kernan.

The study examines unmet legal need in Ireland, i.e. the fact that the people who need help to access justice are not getting it. For FLAC this is a human rights issue, and there is a very great danger that in this climate of recession, the fundamental and hard-won right to equality for all people before the law will be sidelined as less important and only for better-off times.

For FLAC, “access to justice means more than access to civil legal aid and an appointment with a lawyer. It is about meeting equally the legal needs of every community in Ireland. It is about access to the courts and lawmakers, to service providers and basic information on legal rights and entitlements” (Civil Legal Aid in Ireland, 40 Years On, p18).

Please note that in Box 9 on page 25 of hard copies of this report, two figures were omitted in error relating to family as an area of law discussed at FLAC centres in 2008. The "count" figure for family law queries should read 2438 and the "%" figure should read 31.5%. The rest of the figures in Box 9 are correct and this omission has been rectified in the pdf version of the report.