Bailing children because they have no lawyers is a risk to public safety, the Children’s Rights Alliance has argued. 

On Wednesday, solicitors went on strike once again amid ongoing controversy surrounding legal aid reforms. 

The withdrawal of their services meant 11 teenagers appeared before Dublin Children’s Court without legal representation. 

The Irish Times reports that the offences they are charged with included theft, assault, drug possession and carrying weapons.  

One was disabled and several were handed post it notes by the judge, instructing them when they were next due to appear in court. 

On The Claire Byrne Show, Children’s Right Alliance CEO Tanya Ward described it as a “crisis” that impinges on the defendants’ “fundamental human rights in the Constitution”. 

“I was starting to get phone calls from people in the court system who were watching this and really concerned about children who were down there, completely bewildered about what's happening,” she said. 

“I mean, you have a right for a trial under the Constitution and to be able to do that in Ireland, you need to have a legal advisor or a lawyer. 

“It's particularly important for children because some of the children that would be dealing with the court or in conflict with the law, they're often not in school, they might not even have literacy skills.”

Ms Ward continued the work solicitors do with teenagers is not just confined to legal representation as many come from troubled backgrounds and require intervention from social services. 

“What the solicitors would often do is do a little bit of social work, to be honest,” she added. 

“They'll be explaining to the child what's actually happening in the case; they're the only person that they can actually talk to and tell the truth to and know that that information won't be passed on.

“But they'll also be trying to connect them with their social worker, connect them with other services as well. 

“So there's like a whole thread, a whole link in the justice system that's missing when you don't have a solicitor helping and navigating these children to the court system.”

Public safety

Ms Ward described the criminal justice system as “creaking and failing”, warning that it is putting the public at risk. 

“What is concerning is that the judges in some of these cases are saying, ‘Look, I have to release you on bail because you don't have a lawyer representing you here,’ or ‘I can't continue with this case until you have legal representative’,” she described. 

“Or they're hoping that some way this will be resolved between the Minister for Justice and the legal profession - and [that] is just not good enough.”

“What I'm shocked about, to be honest, is that this is continuing on.

“I'm concerned down the road that a member of the public will be harmed when it was completely preventable if a young person had a legal representative.”

Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan has said it would have been “completely negligent in my duties” had he not reformed legal aid payments to solicitors. 

He described the introduction of a flat €520 fee as “appropriate and fair”, while solicitors have argued that it does not adequately reflect the complexity of their work.

Main image: A wrists in handcuffs. Picture by: PA Archive/PA Images.