News Summary

• Jim O’Callaghan plans to tear up the way criminal defence work is paid for and replace it with a fixed flat fee (a single payment of €455 for District Court criminal cases) On paper, it is being presented as reform.
• In practice, it risks making an already stretched system slower, weaker and less fair for the people who depend on it most: victims and defendants.
• The minister has blamed solicitors for unnecessary adjournments.
• In fact, his department does not have the data to show who is responsible.