Debate contribution: Access to Justice and Legal Services in Fermanagh and South Tyrone

Debate contribution by Ms Diana Armstrong on 24 June 2025.

MLA

Ms Diana Armstrong

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

24 June 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Access to Justice and Legal Services in Fermanagh and South Tyrone

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5047841

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I welcome those attending this evening, particularly those in the Public Gallery. Thank you all for waiting for this length of time. We have Colin Mitchell, president of the Law Society of Northern Ireland, and he has some colleagues with him. You are welcome to hear the Adjournment debate. I thank the Minister for being in the Chamber this evening, and I look forward to her consideration of and response to the topic being addressed. I thank my fellow MLAs from Fermanagh and South Tyrone in advance for their contributions to the debate that will follow. Recently, the Law Society invited MLAs in County Fermanagh to attend a meeting to share concerns about access to justice and legal services in the county. The debate seeks to speak for legal practitioners not just in Fermanagh but in neighbouring rural constituencies who face similar issues and pressures. At the outset, I acknowledge the vital role played by solicitors in ensuring access to justice in rural areas such as Fermanagh and South Tyrone. Those services are an essential part of the local community, delivering services that no other organisation can deliver at a grassroots level, such as residential conveyancing, commercial transactions, wills, probate, family matters and support in court cases. Out of the just over 430 private practice solicitor firms in Northern Ireland, there are only 16 such firms in the whole of County Fermanagh. Whilst I quote Fermanagh in this instance, it is understood that South Tyrone shares similar pro rata statistics. The majority of those firms are small, and they struggle with the rising costs of doing business, such as increased National Insurance contributions; rates payable; the recruitment and retention of staff; the constant need for staff upskilling to ensure that they offer the most up-to-date and reliable service; access to training in new and developing digital technologies such as AI; and, indeed, succession planning. Of the 16 firms in County Fermanagh, at least three have ceased to provide legal aid in recent years. Stagnant fees, payment delays and increased bureaucracy in the system have discouraged firms from taking on legal aid-assisted cases due to the impact that those factors have on their economic sustainability. The downturn in those taking legal aid cases risks creating a dearth of access to justice in Fermanagh, and most likely the same scenario is experienced in South Tyrone, and that affects access to legal services for the most vulnerable in our society. Law practices in Northern Ireland represent around 63% of legal sector activity. Their work was valued at approximately £460 million in 2019.

Solicitor firms are significant employers not just of legal talent and secretarial staff but of administrators and financial staff. Over 100 jobs have been created within the 16 firms in Fermanagh. The Adjournment topic is an appeal to the Minister to support those small law firms and value the role that they play in the community.

Despite the contribution that the sector makes to the economy, significant challenges in recruitment and retention present in rural constituencies. The 2022 Hook Tangaza report, 'The Solicitor Profession in Northern Ireland', states:

"Northern Ireland has had the fastest growing legal and accounting sector of any UK region since 2013 ... This growth is transforming the solicitor profession ... but at the same time exacerbating existing shortages of legal support in more peripheral regions of Northern Ireland."

At post-qualifying stage, rural firms pay salaries in the region of £17,000 to £22,000 per annum, whilst alternative, larger legal service providers can offer salaries of £50,000-plus per annum and more flexible working arrangements. With salaries like that on offer, you can imagine where newly qualified solicitors would prefer to start their careers. Tempting, higher salaries mean that smaller rural practices, such as those in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, face genuine struggles to attract qualified solicitors who will put down roots in the area and become part of an established team that offers professional services to the community. It is especially difficult in rural practices when certain cases require solicitors to be on call during the night. That can mean that a solicitor who lives in, say, Lisnaskea will be required to attend a police station custody suite in Strabane in the early hours of the morning. Imagine what it is like for a solicitor to have to travel on rural roads at that time in the morning to deal with the case that has presented and then to travel home again, knowing that they may have caring responsibilities at home and a full day's work awaiting them in the morning. If you imagine that, you can clearly see how a rural practice is seriously disadvantaged by its peripherality and distance from services. In March 2018, the custody suite in Enniskillen PSNI station closed for refurbishment works. Those works were delayed, and, in November 2021, the decision was taken, without consultation, to close the custody suite permanently. Why was that decision taken? Why was an impact assessment not carried out? Minister, I would like to know the answer to those questions. The next nearest custody suite to Enniskillen, at that time, was Omagh, which has a 10-cell suite. In October 2023, it was announced that it would close for 12 months for refurbishment works. It remains closed today. The nearest custody suite to which Fermanagh PSNI can bring arraigned individuals is Strabane, which has a six-person cell. That is a designated custody suite for County Fermanagh, Omagh, Strabane and surrounding areas. That custody suite is regularly over capacity at weekends, meaning that the PSNI officers have to take individuals who were arrested in County Fermanagh to other custody suites, such as those in Waterside, Antrim or Lurgan. That ties up valuable PSNI resources. The removal of officers from their local area impacts on response times and on their ability to progress ongoing investigations, placing additional pressures on the remaining resources in the rural area. Local solicitors tell of encountering a range of clients in the custody setting. The majority of clients could be classed as being vulnerable due to educational, mental health or economic challenges. Following their arrest and interview, clients are expected to make their own way home from Strabane or further afield. In addition, clients are often required to return to custody on subsequent occasions to sign their bail or undergo further interviews. Inadequate bus timetables from County Fermanagh to Strabane often eliminate public transport as a viable option for clients who are travelling to and from custody. A single taxi fare from Enniskillen to Strabane can cost between £80 and £100. In limited circumstances, to bring a client home from custody, police will provide a taxi service, in the rear of a police vehicle, for the most vulnerable who have no means to pay for transport. There is a question as to whether that is an effective use of police resources. For local legal practices, that means that solicitors for the Fermanagh and South Tyrone area who are called to attend custody suites face travelling long distances with the PSNI custody teams to areas with which they are not familiar, often at unsociable hours. Minister, will you tell us whether you agree that that is acceptable? That is hardly a proposition to attract solicitors to rural practices. Equally, local solicitors face the burden of long travel when attending court sittings. Enniskillen courthouse is open only three days a week, primarily for the delivery of Magistrates' Court business. Court hearings are increasingly being centralised in Omagh and beyond, yet again adding difficulties for solicitors in increased travel time, additional costs, stress and pressure. For example, the nearest Crown Court sits in Dungannon, meaning a 100-mile round trip from Irvinestown or Enniskillen. Practitioners will tell you of the difficulties encountered by their clients in attending courts. As one local solicitor stated, "Justice delayed is justice denied, but, in Fermanagh, justice is no longer just delayed: it is geographically out of reach". Lack of access to courts also means that solicitors face difficulties in lodging court documents, often travelling across the country when required to do so. Locally, I am told by solicitors that requests for Land Registry documents are a huge challenge due to the time that it takes for documents to be retrieved. That has a knock-on effect on the justice system. It slows the entire process down, costs money and time, and lowers the confidence of the public in the justice system. Minister, is it only rural practices that face those delays? Is it because of their size that they do not receive a timely service and retrieval of information from the Land Registry? The Minister for the Economy seeks to grow the economy with the subregional economic plan for regional balance throughout Northern Ireland. Regional balance should equally apply to legal services. In rural areas, we have seen a number of essential services lost — local banks, community transport services, emergency general surgery at the South West Acute Hospital — and facilities closed, albeit temporarily, such as Fermanagh Lakeland Forum for an estimated three-year rebuilding programme. The removal of those services has the potential to reduce the level of residential business footfall in the area, as people want to live closer to acceptable services. It could be the death knell for local legal practices if we do not take cognisance of the consequences of those withdrawals. We cannot let that happen to legal practices that offer such valuable professional services in rural towns and communities. I thank the Law Society for its sterling work in supporting law practices regionally and for recognising the value of their specialised work. I also refer to the Department of Justice's enabling access to justice programme, which explicitly recognises the need to modernise and reform how justice is delivered, with particular emphasis on removing barriers for rural and disadvantaged communities. I therefore call on you, Minister, to review the closure of Enniskillen custody suite, the decision on which was predicated on occupancy metrics during the COVID pandemic period. I ask you to implement short-term solutions, such as part-time or weekend custody services in County Fermanagh, to alleviate pressure and improve access; to protect and restore the rural legal infrastructure, including local court hearings and police facilities, to ensure fair, proportionate and effective justice delivery; to collaborate with the Law Society and rural solicitors to identify service gaps and develop sustainable, long-term strategies for the legal profession; and to develop and publish a rural justice access strategy that aligns with statutory and policy commitments to ensure equitable justice provision across Northern Ireland.

1,767 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:56 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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