REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE OF THE LEGAL AID BOARD
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE OF THE LEGAL AID BOARD THE LAW SOCIETY, BLACKHALL PLACE, DUBLIN
Dia dhíbh a chairde,
It’s good to be part of this Conference which marks the 30th anniversary of the Legal Aid Board. It is hard to believe just how recent is the advent of state-funded legal aid for civil and family law cases. Although legal aid in criminal cases had a longer history and there was a culture in the legal profession of offering pro bono services to those who could not otherwise afford them, the simple reality was that access to legal services and access to justice itself was far from evenly distributed in our society.
It was a group of law students who made the first stand against the unfairness of a system which favoured the wealthy over the poor when they created FLAC. It was that early volunteer based service and its public advocacy that ultimately led to the creation of the Legal Aid Board and the widening of the scope of state funded access to legal services. It is a sign of very changed times that a former member of FLAC, Anne Colley, a longstanding champion of wide public access to legal services is today the Board’s Chairperson. Anne follows in a long line of very distinguished members of the Legal Aid Board, including her predecessors as Chairperson, the late Ms Justice Mella Carroll, Vincent Landy, SC, Clare Connellan, Mr. Justice Niall Fennelly and the late Eamon Leahy. Each one of these supporters of Legal Aid saw the work of the Board grow from a blank sheet of paper to a complex service that is seen as a cornerstone of a fair, egalitarian and just society. It was and still is a ground-breaking service, marking a significant cultural shift towards the attainment of the Republic of citizens with equal rights and equal opportunities promised by the 1916 Proclamation.
The conference addresses the theme of “Access to Justice and Legal Aid: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future.” It’s a timely continuation of the conversation about the importance of access to justice and legal aid in a democratic republic which has made huge advances in the quality of life and in widening the availability of life. The conference is, of course, occurring at a time of economic retrenchment. We are just out of recession and while growth is slowly returning we know that it will be some considerable time before buoyancy returns to public expenditure. So there are certain tough resource-related realities as we look to the future but maybe in looking to the past we can see that those who first championed civil legal aid have virtual doctorates in overcoming tough realities.
In these past three decades, the Legal Aid Board has helped considerably to level the legal playing field. You have provided legal advice and legal remedies to many thousands of people who could not otherwise afford it. You have been and are agents of both justice and social inclusion and while we can count the number of clients you have assisted, more difficult to assess but just as important has been the far-reaching personal impact on the lives of your service users, especially the alleviation of stress and anxiety at what are almost invariably difficult and troubling times in a persons life.
The social consequences of these economically challenging times add to your workload for the downstream consequences show up in demand for legal advice and aid in the areas of employment, debt and family law. For those who face into the storm of those pressures, there is some reassurance in the fact that they can access a fine, professional service with a reputation for compassion and wisdom. Whether it is guiding separating parents to a mutually satisfactory and workable custody agreement, advising on employment law or assisting those who are facing debt problems, you help hold things together at a time when people are afraid that their own coping skills may not be able to prevent things from falling apart. Your work too with the Refugee Legal Service helps us as a society to deal much more humanely and effectively with the application of the law relating to asylum, the wider immigration issues and that awful contemporary scourge, human trafficking.
That first year of operation thirty years ago seems a different era and a different country in many ways. You have helped bring about a widening of the range of options open to us today with mediation and alternate forms of dispute resolution now moving from the fringes to centre stage. The future will demand imaginative, innovative and cost effective solutions to the problems facing your clients and that is why a Conference such as this is so important because it gathers those who hold the experience and insight, offers a process through which that information is shared, interrogated and distilled and gives us the hope that with your help we will more clearly see the next steps we need to take to ensure that our society continues to develop into that Republic that cherishes each of its citizens equally. Those citizens are today considerably more diverse, multi-ethnic, multicultural than ever before. Our society is considerably more sophisticated, demanding and fast-moving than ever before. Navigating its legal processes is best done in the company of good guides and that is your vocation.
How we vindicate rights is a test of us and thanks to your work we have an accessible system of vindication and support that was not available to any other generation. We are entitled to express pride in the accomplishments of those whose campaigning began the consciousness raising that led to the Board’s establishment. We are entitled to express pride in the work and the lives that the Board and its staff have invested in these past thirty years. And then when we have celebrated and given the many and heartfelt thanks that are due we are entitled to do what you are doing here – to ask where we go to from here so that we never grow complacent, never lose our vigilant edge and keep nudging towards the realisation of the caring, egalitarian Republic that is our ambition.
I wish you well with today’s conference. It is a valuable opportunity to reflect on the Board’s past, share experiences with your counterparts in other jurisdictions and plot the chart that takes us more assuredly to the future. I would like to congratulate the Board, its management and staff, both past and present and thank you on my own behalf as President and on behalf of those who may not have thanked you through the years for your excellent work but have much to thank you for.
Your work has served, is serving and will continue to serve this State and its citizens well.
Is iontach an obair atá ar siúl agaibh. Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.