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Annual Report 2007 - Service Provided in 2007
The mission of the Legal Aid Board is to “provide a professional, efficient, cost-effective and accessible legal aid and advice service”. Services are provided to clients primarily through a network of law centres and cases extend to most areas of civil law. Whilst a wide variety of cases are handled, the majority tend to be in the area of family law. The law centre network also incorporates the Refugee Legal Service, which provides legal services to asylum seekers. As noted above, the Board also provides a complementary service using solicitors in private practice when it is deemed necessary and appropriate.
The total number of cases in which legal services were provided by the Board in 2007 was in the region of 18,000. The number of cases dealt with in the law centres and the number of family law cases referred to private solicitors on the Board’s panels both increased while there was a decrease in the number of asylum seekers registering as clients of the RLS. The latter was reflective of the drop in numbers applying for asylum.
Law Centres
Legal aid and advice was provided through the Board’s law centres
in 13,905 cases in 2007. Comparative information for 2006 and
2005 and a breakdown between aid and advice cases are set out
below.
Table 1
As can be seen, the total number of cases dealt with increased by over 5% in 2007 compared to the previous year, and by over 13% compared to 2005. Part of this increase can be attributed to the increased demand arising from the revision of financial eligibility criteria that came into force on 1 September 2006. In addition, the Board introduced new arrangements for the collection of statistical information, thus providing greater accuracy of information.
Legal Advice Cases
Chart 1 below highlights that family law continues to constitute the predominant area where the Board provides legal advice, although 2007 saw a significant increase in advice provided on other civil matters. Just over two-thirds of advice cases in 2007 were in the family law area. Legal advice is where advice has been provided to the client but legal aid, i.e. representation in court, has not. The number of cases recorded here represents those cases in which persons were provided with legal advice during 2007, some of whom may go on to be granted legal aid at a later stage.
Overall, advice cases were up by 23% on 2006. The number of family law advice cases increased by almost 13% in 2007 to 3,001 while there was a significant increase in cases where advice was provided on other civil matters (50%). The latter category includes matters such as wills/probate/administration, medical negligence, personal injury. The number of cases where conveyancing services were provided also increased significantly in 2007.
A more comprehensive breakdown of the main issues in respect of which advice was given in 2007 is provided below. In relation to some of the cases listed below, advice was provided on more than one matter. For example, a person receiving advice in respect of separation or divorce may also have received advice about matters such as maintenance or domestic violence; these advices are not recorded separately.
Legal Aid Cases
The issues in relation to which the Board’s law centre solicitors provided representation in 2007 and the comparative information for 2006 and 2005 are set out in chart 2 below.
Legal aid cases were down about 1% on the preceding year. Within this, as can be seen from the chart, there was a 9% decrease in the number of divorce, separation and nullity cases handled. Such cases are processed in the Circuit Court with a small number of appeals going to the High Court. There was a significant increase, of 25%, in the number of other family law cases processed in 2007. These are typically District Court cases, for example custody/access/guardianship, domestic violence and maintenance. There are other types of cases, such as child abduction cases, which are heard in the High Court. Child care cases are processed in the District Court and these also increased in 2007. The number of cases processed covering other civil matters recorded a decrease in 2007.
A more comprehensive breakdown of the issues in respect of which legal aid was given in 2007 is provided below. Again, in relation to some of the cases listed, legal aid may have been provided in respect of more than one matter, for example divorce, maintenance and custody/access/guardianship; these matters are not recorded separately.
In respect of divorce, 2007 saw the tenth anniversary of the effective introduction of divorce in Ireland. As can be seen above, the Board was directly engaged in 2,783 divorce cases in 2007 and, of these, 868 were concluded during the year. The Courts Service reported that 3,684 divorce cases were the subject of court orders in 2007.
Whilst the two figures are not strictly comparable, they do give a good indication of the level of involvement that the Board has in divorce proceedings in this country.
Duration of Cases
Table 2 provides an age profile of cases in which legal aid was provided in 2007, by court. The year is indicative of when the file was opened.
Table 2
As has been evident in previous years, case progression in the Circuit Court (where divorce and separation cases are heard) tends to be significantly slower than in the District Court. These delays can be ascribed to various factors, such as the more substantial nature of the cases, often involving property and pensions. Delays in getting Court dates can also be a factor. Over 27% of the Circuit Court cases dealt with by the Board in 2007 had been carried forward from before 2005.
Of the 9,380 legal aid cases handled in the law centres in 2007, 37% were completed by the end of the year, with the remainder, 5,949, still active on December 31st.
Table 3 gives an age profile of the cases involving court proceedings completed in 2007 by subject matter.
Table 3
Of the 3,431 legal aid cases completed in 2007, 22% of them dated back to 2004 or earlier. For divorce, separation and nullity cases, the corresponding proportion was 40%, which is indicative of the fact that these cases generally take longer to process than cases heard in the District Court (where other family law matters tend to be heard).
Cases On Hand
Table 4 below gives the status of all of the Board’s legal aid cases in 2007 as of the 31st December 2007. The information from which this table is taken assists the Board in monitoring the progress of cases through the court process.
Table 4
Private Practitioners involvement in family law cases
The Board operates Private Practitioner Schemes to complement the service provided by law centres. This assists the Board in seeking to achieve its objective of providing legal services to all applicants within a maximum waiting time of 4 months. The service operates for certain family law matters in the District Court (such as domestic violence, maintenance, guardianship and custody/access cases) as well as for divorce and judicial separation cases in the Circuit Court. To this end, the Board maintains panels of solicitors who are required to comply with quality standards and best practice guidelines to be considered for the provision of services. Separate panels are maintained for District and Circuit Court cases.
A breakdown is given in Table 5 of the number of legal aid certificates granted in 2007 to enable representation to be provided in the District and Circuit Courts by solicitors in private practice who are on the Board’s panels. Comparable information for the previous 2 years is also included.
Table 5
While the number of certificates issued on foot of the Circuit Court scheme dropped significantly in 2006, the figures increased again in 2007. The number of certificates issued for District Court matters also increased significantly in 2007. These figures reflect the efforts by the Board to ensure that all clients receive an initial appointment within 4 months.
Medical Negligence Unit
Having been established in 2006, the Medical Negligence Unit saw its first full year of operation in 2007. The Unit has had one solicitor assigned to it since its inception. When the Unit was set up medical negligence files were referred to it from the Board’s law centres on a phased basis. A number of files that were close to completion remained in the law centres. Arrangements were also put in place for the referral of new applications to the Unit. Clients are generally seen at the Unit’s offices in Dublin although they can also be seen in other locations in the country, often in one of the Board’s law centres.
The Unit dealt with 105 cases during the course of 2007. Of these, 64 cases were concluded. In the majority of these cases it was necessary, after careful consideration, to advise the client that they did not have an actionable case against the medical practitioner or the hospital against whom they wished to seek relief. There were 41 active cases brought forward into 2008. Proceedings were ongoing in approximately 13 cases and investigations were ongoing in relation to the remaining 28 matters.
Appeal Committee
Legal services are provided in individual cases in accordance with the provisions of the Civil Legal Aid Act and the Regulations made under the Act. Initial decisions on the grant and refusal of legal services are taken by head office staff at designated grade levels. A right of appeal exists where an applicant is refused legal services. An appeal against a refusal of legal services goes to an appeal committee, which comprises five members of the statutory Board. In 2007, the appeal committee met on 13 occasions. In all, there were 83 appeals considered. Of these, the original decision was upheld in 63 cases, with 17 decisions being overturned. The following table sets out the details of the appeals considered by the Board in 2007, together with comparative information for the previous two years.
Table 6
Timeliness of the Service
The significantly shorter waiting periods for first appointments with a solicitor achieved in 2005 and 2006 were largely maintained in 2007. The following table sets out the number of persons waiting for an appointment as of the 31st December 2007 and similar figures for the corresponding date in 2006 and 2005.
Table 7
On the 31st December 2007 waiting times for a first appointment with a solicitor were at two months or less in 16 of the Board’s law centres. The waiting time exceeded four months in one centre owing to a confluence of issues which the Board is addressing.
The maximum waiting time as at 31st December 2007, in months, is set out for the various law centres in table 8 below.
Table 8
 
Demand for the Service
The following table gives the number of persons who applied for services to the Board in 2007. Comparable information for 2006 and 2005 is also provided.
Table 9
There was an increase of about 5% in the number of applications at law centres and the PP Centre in 2007. This is attributable in part to the significant increase in the financial eligibility limits that was introduced in September 2006. The demand continued to be primarily in the area of family law, notwithstanding the Board’s wide ranging remit.
As will be outlined below, there was a drop of about 11% in new clients registering with the RLS.
Priority Cases
In 2007, the Board continued to provide a priority service where it considered that an immediate or near immediate service was needed. A priority service was given in 16% of law centre cases. These included cases of domestic violence, child abduction, child care or those with statutory time limits close to expiry.
Asylum
The Refugee Legal Service (RLS) provides service at all stages of the asylum process and in appropriate cases on immigration and deportation matters. In 2007 it continued to provide services through 3 full-time law centres; in Dublin, Cork and Galway. As well as this, the 3 RLS offices also provided services through an outreach service, where general information on the service is offered to new and existing clients, in their own reception centres. In Dublin, this included Baleskin Reception Centre, Kilmacud Reception Centre, Georgian Court and Hatch Hall. The outreach service also incorporated clinics in Sligo, Limerick, Athlone and Waterford.
Additionally, the outreach service to the Mosney accommodation centre was reinstated during the year, following a review of requirements for this centre.
RLS: New client registrations
The number of new clients registering with the RLS was 2,650 in 2007, a reduction of 11% compared to the previous year.
Around two-thirds of applicants for refugee status availed of RLS services during the course of the year, a slight reduction on the corresponding proportion of 70% in 2006. These figures are consistent both with the decreasing number of asylum seekers presenting in this country and also the increasing participation in this area of law by solicitors in private practice.
The Board granted almost 1,800 legal aid certificates in 2007 to enable representation before the Refugee Appeals Tribunal, representing just over 60% of all appeals brought before the tribunal in the year. The following table shows the comparative figures for 2007 and the breakdown between the number of certificates in which representation was provided by RLS solicitors and by private solicitors/barristers.
Table 10
The use of private solicitors in asylum matters is confined to appeals to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal. All other legal aid services in relation to asylum are provided by the Board’s legal staff in the RLS offices with the assistance of barristers in judicial review cases.
Closed Files
Overall, in 2007, the RLS closed 3,200 client files. More than half of these were closed because the client no longer required services from the RLS or was not contactable. Over 15% were granted asylum, while another 2% were given temporary leave to remain. In 17% of cases, the applicant was deported. Another 13% withdrew their applications for asylum as a result of an application for residency (10%) or voluntary repatriation (3%).
Judicial Review
The Board instituted judicial review proceedings in 68 asylum cases in 2007. As can be seen in Chart 4 below, these proceedings were mostly in relation to decisions of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal. The following table gives comparative figures for 2006 and 2005 and also the outcomes of the cases. It should be noted that, of over 2,700 judicial reviews in the immigration area over the last 3 years, the board only accounted for 218, or 8%.
Table 11
The most notable feature of the outcomes for cases instituted in 2007 is that most of the cases remained active at end year. Of the 11 cases that were completed, 8 were settled. Cases that are settled are generally settled on terms that are no less advantageous to the asylum seeker than if they were successfully litigated in court.
Chart 4 gives a breakdown of the source of the decision/Order that was the subject of the judicial review in 2007.
The fact that most of these proceedings were instituted against the Refugee Appeals Tribunal is largely attributable to the fact that there is no appeal from its decisions. Accordingly, defects can be dealt with generally only by way of judicial review.
Refugee Documentation Centre
The Board’s Refugee Documentation Centre (RDC) provides an independent research and query service on Country of Origin Information (COI) for all organisations involved in the asylum process. Country of Origin Information is used in procedures that assess claims of individuals to refugee status or other forms of international protection. It should help in answering questions by decision-makers and legal advisers about the political, social, cultural, economic and human rights situation as well as the humanitarian situation in countries of origin.
The RDC is recognised as one of the most developed information centres in its specialist area in the world. The number of queries received in 2007, at 2,200, was some 5% below the level in 2006. As in previous years, the major proportion of queries raised (over 90%) related to information sought about an asylum seeker’s Country of Origin (COI), with the remainder divided between legal and quasilegal queries and library requests (for books, reports etc). The subject country of these COI queries can be seen in Chart 5 below.
A key feature of the RDC’s work during the year was the completion of its new COI Document and Library Management System. This was developed under the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform’s Asylum and Immigration Strategic Integration Project (AISIP). The system was launched in September 2007 – the first element of AISIP to go live. The system allows users to view and search the RDC library catalogue, COI documents and published ‘anonymised’ queries from their desktop via a single user interface. The RDC also remained heavily involved in publishing material in respect of COI and related matters in 2007, including 4 editions of The Researcher. In addition, the RDC continued its training activities in 2007. This included provision of training in the use and searching of COI to staff in the RLS and the asylum determination agencies.
In addition, staff provided training in a number of international locations. It also provided trainers for the COI e-training system which was jointly developed by the RDC with Accord of Austria and other partners in the COI Network.
The Decision Search Unit of the RDC continued to provide a search service of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal decisions database for the legal representatives of clients of the Refugee Legal Service. This service is available to all users of the RDC. Since it was established in November 2006 the DSU has responded to over 1,000 requests. Of these, 50% were conducted on behalf of barristers, 40% per cent for RLS solicitors and 10% for private practitioners.
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