Criminal defence solicitors vs Jim O’Callaghan: Stakes raised during an unusual day in Bray

It’s a Thursday morning in Bray District Court and the criminal list is being dealt with in short order.As the court registrar calls out the cases, the vast majority are met with the words of a Garda sergeant: “Affected by the action.”Defendants are brought into the room to be told that their solicitor will be unable to act for them due to strike action. One after another, their cases are put back to late January. Judge Paula Cullinane informs several of them that they will need to tell their solicitors of the new dates.READ MOREThere are a small number of legal aid cases that are being taken on, however – one of them by Dublin solicitor Phelim O’Neill. Instead of January, this case is put back by just one a week. But it is very much in the minority on today’s court list.And then something unusual happens. Solicitor Joe Maguire stands up and tells the court he is resigning from the legal aid panel. After 44 years, the solicitor says, he can’t abide by the new legal aid fees scheme.Moments later, his colleague Brendan Maloney does the exact same.Speaking outside a short time later, Maguire says he made his mind up after reading a letter from Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan to the Law Society, the representative body for solicitors in the country, the day before. Solicitors Brendan Maloney, left, and Joe Maguire outside Bray District Court in Co Wicklow on Thursday after withdrawing their services from the legal aid panel He objects in particular to the Minister’s claim that more than 600 solicitors are still listed as available for criminal legal aid cases.“I just thought he’s working with numbers and he’s trying to interpret the numbers in a way that suits him,” says Maguire.“So he’s saying there’s still 600 people on the legal aid panel, but none of them are working or very few of them are working.“There are some working in Wexford, there are some working in Cork and there are two working in Dublin and that’s it. “I just wanted to have it recorded that I felt that the Minister was interpreting our passive behaviour as approving of his situation. So I have to resign from the panel to say: ‘No – it’s not the case, there are no people there’.”Joining him outside is Maloney. “I’ll be writing. I’ll do it formally and write to them between today and tomorrow. I will be coming off the panel,” he says.It is the Minister’s “intransigence” in the dispute, says Maguire, that prompted his resignation from the panel.“I took it as a personal insult after 38 years to be told I was gaming the system, when there’s a countless amount of cases and work – and unseen work – that you do that you never get paid for.”The row has the potential to cause “chaos”, say the two solicitors. A backlog of cases is building each day. [ Criminal legal aid payment among ‘very few levers’ to expedite justice, says O’CallaghanOpens in new window ]On the other side, O’Callaghan believes his reforms are a vital part of making the courts more efficient and less costly.He has been depicted as a sort of poacher-turned-gamekeeper, a senior counsel who knows the system inside out and who is determined to change it.He has replaced the existing appearance-based fee model with a new flat-fee scheme. It pays solicitors €520 to handle a case from beginning to end, compared with the old system of €240 for the first appearance and €60 for every subsequent one. Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan and Taoiseach Micheál Martin at Fianna Fáil's annual think-in, Co Offaly. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Wire O’Callaghan argues that the old system incentivised adjournments and was being abused by some solicitors.Lawyers have rejected this claim and say the new scheme means solicitors are expected to work for free on complex cases that require multiple court appearances.As the row with his fellow members of the legal profession drags on, O’Callaghan claimed last week that more of them were coming around to the new system.Dozens of solicitors around the country were reported to have taken on work since the end of the summer recess – and O’Callaghan claimed there had been no collapse in the number of criminal legal aid certificates issued.On top of this, he said, there were signs that his changes were already effective in reducing the number of court appearances.This account has been disputed by senior criminal defence solicitors. They argue that while accurate, the numbers on the legal aid panel are misleading – and among them are lawyers who have died and judges. The prominent Dublin solicitor Michael Hennessy is highly critical of the arguments presented by O’Callaghan.Last year he was publicly listed as one of the top recipients of legal aid payments, bringing in more than €972,000.“In my experience, solicitors working in defence are not acquisitive people,” he says.“However, to do the job properly we have staff and equipment and offices and all the concomitant overheads. I am a sole practitioner. “Approximately 65 per cent of my practice is in the District Court where all incoming legal aid fees are split 50:50 with about 60 junior barristers throughout Dublin and the greater Leinster area. “So about 100 suppliers are paid out of the annual published figures which include VAT and exclude income tax. These are the hidden costs.”[ Confusion and delays at district court as criminal legal aid dispute drags onOpens in new window ]Hennessy says “hidden work” has been carried out for more than 27 years and he personally deals with 150 cases a week.“I run a free clinic each Wednesday. I visit, on average, 12 clients in prisons every weekend and I am on call every night of the week frequently beyond midnight,” he says.Tony Collier, one of the country’s busiest criminal defence solicitors who was listed as earning €676,000 in criminal legal aid payments in 2025, says that there is no signs of slippage among solicitors in Dublin in their opposition against O’Callaghan’s scheme.Tony Collier speaks to the media after solicitors walk out on strike outside the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin. Photograph: Sam Boal/Collins “I attended a meeting of Dublin solicitors this week and – save for two small law firms – there is unanimity among Dublin solicitors to continue the withdrawal of services,” he says.Collier questions the narrative in the media over recent days of solicitors taking on legal aid cases again – and claims hundreds of upcoming trials could be jeopardised unless the Minister engages “in good faith” with the Law Society.“It is imperative now that there is engagement between the parties to avoid disruption to these cases,” he says. “The disruption brought about not only affects clients but also complainants and the victims of crime”.The two Dublin firms referenced by Collier belong to Phelim O’Neill and Andy Vallely. O’Neill has publicly described the new system as “fair and generous” – and has claimed that some junior barristers have been warned they will be blacklisted if they accept instructions from firms that haven’t withdrawn their services.At the time of publication, Vallely had not responded to a request for an interview.Six other prominent solicitors, understood to have signed up to O’Callaghan’s new system, did not respond to requests for interviews from The Irish Times last week.The stand-off appears to be a battle of time.The longer the dispute continues, the more pressure that mounts on smaller solicitors to abandon their opposition and return to taking such cases. Meanwhile, the outcome to a judicial review taken by Dublin solicitor John Quinn seeking to have the new scheme quashed is still expected next month.In Bray, Brendan Maloney says he does not think the new system will achieve its stated aims.[ Legal aid row pushing District Courts towards ‘Covid era backlogs’, solicitors warnOpens in new window ]“There are simple remedies to this that will bring about efficiencies in respect of the system,” he says. “But he [O’Callaghan] has to be willing to look at those instead of using us as a political football to appear as some kind of strong politician staring down the legal profession. But that’s fine. He can advance his political career and he’s entitled to do that.”Joe Maguire predicts “chaos” in the months ahead.“I’m coming to the end of my days, but I took the view that this is something that we have to do for the next generation,” he says. “And I said that to the court. I said that if we don’t stand up against this, Bray Court as it is, will no longer exist. And that’s really it.”