Various Schemes
Board Services
The Legal Aid Board may provide advice and aid through Law Centres established under the legislation. A person shall be entitled to apply for legal aid or advice through a Law Centre irrespective of his place of residence.
The Legal Aid Board provides services in relation to routinely available information. Information may be obtained through a Law Centre, through leaflets or online websites. The information is available at www.legalboard.ie.
See separately in relation to the Citizens’ Advice Service. A  very wide range of up to date advice is available on citizensinformation.ie.
Law Centres
There are 30 Law Centres and 12 part time Law Centres. The Board operates a dedicated medical negligence unit. The Board also provides legal services through the complementary private practitioner service at District Court and Circuit Court levels.
A managing solicitor manages each Law Centre. Other staff in terms of number or grade will depend on the size of the centre. There may be anything up to seven solicitors in a Law Centre and supporting staff. The overall number of solicitors in the Law Centre is approximately 100 with a further 30 law clerks.
The vast majority of cases dealt with by the civil legal aid services in the areas of family law, custody, childcare and domestic violence.
Refugee Legal Services
The Refugee Legal Service is under the auspices of the civil legal aid scheme. It is a dedicated law centre and staffed by solicitors and paralegal staff focused on the area of refugee and immigration law.
There are four refugee legal service centres, two in Dublin, one in Cork, one in Galway. There are a total of 20 solicitors and nearly 30 paralegal.
Registration for legal services information is provided to asylum seekers in one centre. Legal assistance and advice are provided at another centre in North Brunswick Street. An outreach service is available to asylum seekers in other parts of the country through clinics held in hostels and other locations.
A panel of solicitors and barristers in private practice may submit appeals on behalf of legally aided asylum applicants. The service decides allocation of cases between solicitors and barristers on its panel for the basis of the level of cases, eligibility to run cases in-house.
Refugee Documentation Centre
The Refugee Documentation Centre was established by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and funded by the Refugee Legal Service. It provides an independent research service, supplying material in relation to the asylum process to the RLS as well as Department of Justice, the Refugee Applications Commissioner, Refugee Appeals Tribunal Asylum Policy Registration Unit and private solicitors and barristers on the Board’s private practitioner panel.
The section is responsible for
- the provision of objective independent query research service to user groups without provision of specialist library for general public access.
- undertaking of additional research such as commissioning reports and relevant topics
- provision of training or in country of origin information and related in-house and external user groups as specified.
- promotion of best practice
Family Mediation Service
The Family Mediation Service is not part of the legal aid system as such. It is a service to help married and unmarried couples who have decided to separate or divorce. Results are available to persons who disagree regarding childcare arrangement. It may be available in a wider range of circumstances in other classes of interfamily dispute.
Clients are helped to negotiate their own agreement by a mediator taking account of the needs and interests of all involved. It is not a marriage counselling service nor legal advice service. It is a State owned service which is staffed by professionally trained and accredited mediators. The service is free.
The Family Mediation Service has 16 offices around the country, four full time and 12 part-time. The service encourages parties to cooperate and work out mutually acceptable arrangements in relation to parenting, financial support, property and assets and other issues related to separation.
Family Mediator
A mediator meets each client and looks at the issues to be discussed and agreed. He or she attempts to create an atmosphere in which neither party dominates, but each participates in good faith. He attempts to create and maintain co-operation and responsibility and help parties deal with difficult emotional issues that might otherwise prevent agreement.
A professionally trained mediator assists reaching of an agreement. Both parties attend. The mediator is impartial. His questions are confidential.
Generally, there are three to six sessions of one hour each. At the end of mediation, a written document setting out the details of the parties’ agreement is prepared. This is taken to solicitors to be drawn up into a separation agreement or to be made a court order.