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Barrister pay uplift 'not a realistic prospect' - justice minster

News imagePA A long red-haired woman speaks into a black microphone, wearing red lipstick. She wears a purple cardigan with a white and teal shirt underneath. PA
Naomi Long has said demanded that the CBA bring some realism to this conversation

The justice minster has insisted her department does not have the adequate funds available to award barristers a pay uplift after on-going strike action.

The strike, which began on Monday, means that no Crown Court cases involving people who require legal aid can proceed while the dispute continues.

The chair of the Bar Council of Northern Ireland, Donal Lunny KC, said the strike was called because Crown Court legal aid fees have not risen in 20 years.

Naomi Long claimed that the pay uplift asked for by the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) was "not a realistic prospect".

The justice minster told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme that she does not "feel accountable" that "the CBA and the wider Bar Council feel they negotiated a poor deal in 2015".

"They have already had a 16% uplift to their fees," Long said.

She added that she "accepted it in whole, I backdated it to the point that I had accepted it last December, and that money is now being paid to barrister and solicitors alike.

"The difficulty we have is that their asks have changed over time and the goal post continue to move."

On Monday, Lunny said that current legal aid fees are "worth less than half what they were worth in 2005 when they were set".

When asked about the 2005 fees, Long said she wasn't "comfortable answering" the question due to the fact that "it ignores the fact that they were part of a mediated and negotiated settlement in 2015, which set the fee structure that I then inherited, I can't go back to a time before devolution and look at what did or didn't happen during that period".

Uplift will cost 'well over £6m'

"It isn't a relatively small amount," she said.

"The 16% uplift in the last year alone... will cost us well over £6m, now that may be a small amount to some barristers, but it certainly isn't a small amount to my department given that we barely have enough money to carry out our statutory functions."

"At the heart of this there are victims, people whose cases are not proceeding to court, some of the most vulnerable people are being held ransom because of this dispute," she continued.

Long has demanded that the CBA "bring some realism to this conversation," and that she is "actually inviting the CBA to come and meet" with her.

News imageClaudia Savage/PA Wire Donal Lunny, chair of the Bar Council of Northern Ireland, posing for a photo in front of a large window overlooking Belfast City Hall. He is a man with short, dark hair and dark-rimmed glasses. He is wearing a navy suit and tie with a white shirt. Claudia Savage/PA Wire
Donal Lunny KC said younger barristers were avoiding criminal cases due to low pay

The strike has been called by the CBA which has 193 members.

A large majority (89%) of them voted in favour of a full withdrawal of Crown Court services, marking an escalation in the long-running dispute.

The Bar Council chair said young barristers "are not interested in doing Crown Court work because the pay is so poor, so you have an ever-dwindling cohort of older barristers doing that work".

"It's a step that hasn't been taken lightly, but it's a step that's been necessary because we don't feel that the department are tackling the crisis with either the urgency or the pragmatism that's required.

"It's very much a last resort," he said.