CRIMINAL BARRISTERS ACROSS Ireland are withdrawing their services tomorrow in a protest against the lack of progress on pay restoration, in the first of three days of withdrawal this month.

This comes following a recommendation from The Council of The Bar of Ireland last month.

Protests will take place tomorrow at 16 courthouses nationwide where criminal cases were due to be heard on the day, including Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Limerick, Mayo, Longford, Meath, Sligo, Tipperary, Wicklow, Waterford, and Wexford.

The withdrawal of services is an escalation on the action taken by criminal barristers across the country on October 3 of last year, with the aim of seeking an “independent, meaningful, time-limited and binding mechanism to determine the fees paid to criminal barristers by the Director of Public Prosecutions and under the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Scheme”.

Following the withdrawal last October, a 10% restoration was subsequently announced in Budget 2024. 

The Bar of Ireland has said that even after this, the full range of Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (FEMPI) cuts that were applied across the public sector between the years 2009 and 2015 continue to apply to the profession. 

This is despite a government commissioned review in 2018 that acknowledged that a reversal of the cuts was justified given the level of reform and flexibilities delivered by the profession. 

Chair of the Council of the Bar of Ireland, Sara Phelan SC, said it was “with regret” that it had recommended another withdrawal of services. 

“No barrister wishes to be in this position, but we have been left with no choice. The government has just reported the unwinding of FEMPI legislation this month, yet FEMPI-era cuts still apply to our profession,” she said.

She said that barristers are treated differently to others in the criminal justice system, and that they are seeking fairness and appropriate investment in the system.

The ball is in the government’s court.

Chair of the Criminal State Bar Committee Sean Guerin SC said that it was a case of social justice.

“It has been acknowledged in government that there is ‘no good reason’ why fees of criminal barristers haven’t been restored, yet eight months on from a commitment to establish a process reviewing the fees, no meaningful progress has been made,” he said.

The Bar of Ireland is the representative body for the barristers’ profession in Ireland, and is governed by the Constitution of The Bar of Ireland. The Bar of Ireland is the term used to describe the independent referral bar that has a current membership of approximately 2,150 practising barristers.