Legal aid application branded ‘joke’ by district court judge
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A judge in Mullingar District Court yesterday told fourteen defendants that their case would be a “gravy train” for lawyers after they applied for legal aid.
The men appeared in the court in relation to charges of violent disorder relating to an incident at The Stillery pub in Mullingar last year.
Judge Seamus Hughes, a former politician appointed to the court in 2011, called it “a joke, an absolute joke” after the men posted €7,000 cash in bail between them — €500 each — yet applied for legal aid.
He questioned how the men could afford bail but not legal representation.
Judge Hughes subsequently warned that the case was “going to cost the taxpayers of the country” and, the Irish Examiner reports, would be “a gravy train for solicitors and barristers in the circuit court”.
He suggested the legal costs associated with the case could run as high as €200,000.
The fourteen defendants were remanded on bail and will reappear in the court on Thursday 10 March.
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