This article is from page 21 of the 2011-02-01 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 21 JPG
A COUNTY Clare lawyer was one of the highest paid barristers in Ireland, under the criminal free legal aid scheme last year.
Mark Nicholas, who is a junior counsel practising in Clare and Limerick, earned € 267,006 under the scheme last year. He was the eighth highest paid out of more than 600 barristers on the scheme last year. His income under this scheme increased by almost € 40,000 on the previous year.
Several other barristers who practice in Clare also featured prominently on the list, published by the Department of Justice.
Brian McInerney was top of the list, with an income of € 413,860. Michael Collins earned more than € 135,000 under the scheme; Pat Whyms earned more than € 80,000; Senior Counsel David Sutton earned almost € 80,000; Lorcan Connolly, BL, received close to € 60,000; Senior Counsel Brendan Nix earned more than € 30,000, while Elaine Houlihan, BL, earned more than € 22,000.
More than € 20 million was paid to barristers nationally, under the criminal legal aid scheme, in 2010.
During the past few years, there have been calls for the scheme to be curbed. Among those calling for this has been Fine Gael Councillor Tony Mulcahy.
Mr Mulcahy, who is a candidate in the forthcoming general election, this week repeated his calls for a revamp of the system and said that repeat offenders should not receive unlimited free legal aid.
“There should be an attachment of earnings. If someone breaks a window, the cost of that should be taken into account. Make him pay for that. Whether he is working or not working, it should go through his PPS.
“There would be no need to impose fines any more. That way he won’t be breaking too many windows the following Saturday night. That would deal with 80 per cent of the middle of the road crime.
He said the current system is “ridiculous. The system trudges along”.
“If you are on your 75th criminal charge, you have to ask yourself, where do we stop this representation? It is incredible. You look at the repeat offenders. They are getting free legal aid and free legal aid and free legal aid. That has to stop,” he said.
He said that people should be given no more than a few chances before exhausting all of their options under the free legal aid scheme. “Three chances to avail of free legal aid and you are out,” he said.