Both the Law Society and the Bar Council are calling on the government to restore criminal legal aid fees to their pre-FEMPI levels in Budget 2025, as well as committing to a mechanism for regular reviews.

Fees are currently at 2002 levels as a result of cuts imposed after the 2008 crash, and have been eroded further in real terms by inflation and increases in the cost of living.

The government’s refusal to restore fees led criminal barristers to withdraw their services over three days this summer and one day last October.

There was a partial restoration of fees — to the tune of 10 per cent — following last year’s withdrawal of services.

Justice minister Helen McEntee said this week that this was “the starting point in a wider process to see the restoration of the FEMPI cuts applied to criminal legal aid”.

She said she is “continuing to engage with the minister for public expenditure, NDP delivery and reform in the context of the 2025 estimates process to secure additional funding to progress this further”.

The minister added: “As the criminal legal aid scheme is demand-led and it is for the courts to decide in any given case if legal aid is to be granted, it is not possible to accurately predict the cost of the scheme in any given year.

“However, based on the cost of providing criminal legal aid in 2023, and allowing for a 10 per cent increase in fees that is being paid since the start of this year, I am advised that the cost of restoring the rest of the FEMPI cuts applied to criminal legal aid fees would be in the region of an additional €15.7 million and would amount to an overall annual criminal legal aid bill of approximately €113.8 million.”

Ireland is projected to run a national budget surplus of €8.6 billion in 2024, having run a similar surplus in 2023 and 2022.