Date: Thursday, 25 February 2016
Time: 10am – 12.30pm
Venue: FLAC Offices, 13 Lower Dorset Street, Dublin 1
By: Noeline Blackwell (Director General of FLAC) and Ciarán Finlay (FLAC’s Legal & Policy Officer)
This Legal Education session will provide an overview of the civil legal aid scheme in Ireland. Civil legal aid is an important tool for vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals and groups, particularly those on low incomes, seeking to access justice. However, FLAC is concerned that many people on low incomes who have a legal need are either unaware of State legal aid for non-criminal law matters or may perceive it as a purely family law service. They may not know how to apply for State legal aid or what to expect from the service. Where they do apply, they face barriers like long waiting lists and high costs.
It is therefore crucial that frontline organisations have a thorough understanding of the civil legal aid system so they can ensure their stakeholders are able to access justice when needed. They can also provide valuable information on the legal needs of their communities and clients which can be used to push for positive reform of the civil legal aid system and promote the basic human right of access to justice.
The session will be especially useful for those working directly with people who experience poverty and social exclusion, including single-parent families, older persons, persons with disabilities, migrants, Travellers and Roma, as well as frontline organisations working in areas such as unemployment, social welfare, children’s rights, family breakdown and domestic violence.
Those who have not engaged with the legal aid system but who are interested on how it might be used as an anti-poverty, empowerment tool are especially encouraged to attend.
The Legal Education session aims to provide a general understanding of:
Furthermore, the Legal Education session will include a presentation on FLAC’s new report, “Accessing Justice in Hard Times”. This piece of research examines the impact of the economic downturn on the civil legal aid scheme in Ireland. The report finds that restrictions, cuts and delays disproportionately impacted on vulnerable and marginalised groups. In particular, it highlights growing levels of unmet legal need, cuts to funding to the Legal Aid Board at a time of heightened demand, delays in accessing an appointment with a solicitor in a Law Centre and the impact of increased financial contributions for legal aid services on socio-economically disadvantaged people.
To book a place, please email Maria Quigley at maria.quigley@flac.ie.