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

Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on 24 June 2025.

MLA

Mrs Naomi Long

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

24 June 2025

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Access to Justice and Legal Services in Fermanagh and South Tyrone

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5047867

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I thank the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone Ms Armstrong for securing the debate, and I welcome the opportunity to engage on these issues with everyone who has remained in their place despite the hour. I am acutely aware of the challenges facing our justice system, and my officials and I have had the opportunity to meet constituents and members of the profession from the Member's constituency to address those challenges and outline the steps that I am taking through the enabling access to justice programme. We have shaped some of our response as a result of that meeting, and some of the issues that were raised with us and surfaced during it, and I appreciate very much the Law Society giving us the opportunity to do that.

The programme is based on what I have heard and learned from those who use the system and what they tell us about their experience and what those who support it tell us about the challenges. As the Member will be aware, the reform programme aims to ensure the viability and sustainability of the justice system as a whole and, more important, to provide better services and supports to citizens. That means ensuring the continued availability of high-quality advice and representation and that we minimise the acrimony, stress and trauma for those who come into contact with the justice system by ensuring that the right supports and services are available at the right time and that disputes are resolved at the earliest possible opportunity. The programme committed to a range of actions to help to achieve those aims, including ensuring fair and proportionate remuneration for legal advice and representation; increasing eligibility for legal aid; ensuring clarity through simpler and fairer tests that focus on the greatest need and greatest risk of harm; incentivising early resolution; trialling alternative dispute resolution in the interest of ensuring better outcomes and reducing costs; and enhancing front-line service provision to ensure early access to holistic tailored support at the initial point of need. I am considering responses to the consultation on the programme delivery plan, but work is progressing in tandem with that to ensure that we can proceed and deliver effective change at pace. The programme will, of course, be contingent on resources. Justice has consistently been underfunded, and we need to ensure that there is value for money and balance competing priorities across police, prisons and justice delivery to make sure that we can keep people safe and that resources are directed to the areas of greatest need and to supporting the most vulnerable. Through the programme, I seek to ensure that we maximise every possible benefit from every pound that we invest in legal aid and other access to justice interventions. I am keenly aware that citizens, those supporting them and colleagues in the House have evidence and insight that will help us to determine how best to achieve that. I am committed to continuing that constructive engagement. Changes must, however, be based on robust evidence, and all proposals will be subject to detailed consultation and impact assessments, including rural needs assessments, to ensure that the implications for communities and individuals are properly considered and mitigated and the benefits of the programme for citizens can be realised. While remuneration is only one part of enabling access to justice, legal aid funding is available to ensure that people in Fermanagh and South Tyrone and elsewhere who cannot afford legal services can access the representation and advice that they need. The Department recently conducted a foundational review of legal services, to which some of you referred, that indicated concerns from stakeholders about the provision of rural legal services. There is no doubt that supporting access to legal services in rural areas such as Fermanagh and South Tyrone can present challenges because of issues such as geography, public transport and the location of legal firms. Despite those issues, however, Fermanagh and Omagh have the fifth largest concentration of registered solicitor firms by local government district, with 35 solicitor firms that are based in Fermanagh and Omagh District Council area registered on the Legal Services Agency's (LSA) legal aid management system. That is a ratio of 29·9 solicitor firms per 100,000 of the population. The average distance to the nearest firm is 3·8 miles. Figures for Mid Ulster indicate that it has the fourth largest concentration of registered solicitor firms by local government area, with 36 based in that district registered on the LSA system. That is a ratio of 23·8 solicitor firms per 100,000 of the population and an average minimum distance to the nearest solicitor firm of 2·7 miles. Statistics for 2023-24 show that £2·4 million was paid to solicitor firms in Fermanagh and Omagh and £2·6 million to solicitor firms in Mid Ulster. I want to build on that provision, and, through the enabling access to justice programme delivery plan, I seek to enhance tailored service provision at the point of entry to the system. Actions aimed at streamlining processes, improving transparency, providing targeted advice and resolving cases early outside the court environment will benefit not only those living in rural areas but solicitors and the profession. The proximity of courts and the maintenance of the estate are important issues that Members have raised. The publication of the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service's estate strategy in September 2023 was a really important milestone for the service, as it provides a framework for investment over the next decade and beyond. The estate strategy was developed through a structured engagement process with stakeholders, and one of its four aims is to improve user experience, including ensuring that our estate is inclusive and accessible for everyone. To implement the strategy, the service uses data and evidence to baseline the existing estate against the agreed strategic outcomes and to develop prioritised investment delivery plans in the context of the finite resources that we have available. The future investment in Fermanagh and South Tyrone will form part of that process, and no decision has been made on any courthouse that is part of the overall implementation of the estate strategy. There will, of course, be difficult decisions that need to be taken with respect to all the facilities that we have. However, any proposal to reduce or change the operation of courthouses will be subject to public consultation and the scrutiny of the House.

I will, yes.

All those decisions will be dependent on resource, and the reality is that we do not know what our capital budget will be, because we are in an annual budget situation at the moment. When we move to the point where we have a three-year budgeting situation, the pace of investment that we can make in our capital infrastructure, as well as investment in resources, will be much clearer. Enniskillen courthouse is now open three days a week. It is a hearing centre, and, ultimately, the scheduling of court business is a matter for the judiciary. We facilitate them by having the hearing centre available for them. In respect of custody suites in the region, I understand the situation in some areas where PSNI custody suites have closed and the complexity of the reasons for that. However, the management of the PSNI estate, including custody suites, is an operational matter for the Chief Constable. He is accountable to the Northern Ireland Policing Board, and I cannot interfere in that decision-making. My duty is to ensure that both have adequate funding, and we had discussion at Question Time earlier about the efforts that I have made in that regard. However, I am sure that your colleague Alan Chambers, who sits on the Policing Board, will be able to raise your concerns about whether a rural needs assessment was undertaken. Similarly, the queries that were raised regarding Land Registry delays should really be addressed to the Department of Finance within whose purview that sits. I am unable to answer in that respect. The justice system depends on the work of hard-working, professional legal representatives across the country, and so we are bringing forward legislation to introduce a range of measures to support the viability of the legal profession, enhancing access to justice for all our citizens. We are also looking at how we can not just improve legal aid remuneration but enhance provision for the early payment of disbursements so that people will see the benefit of that. In response to conversations that we had with those who were engaged, for example, in Police and Criminal Evidence (PACE) work, which is the out-of-hours work that you referred to, and some of the issues with travel, we have also reviewed hourly rates and travel disbursements for solicitors. We are looking again at PACE and at providing an uplift for unsocial hours, and we have said that we will do that. People will not take on that kind of criminal work unless they feel rewarded. Not many of us would get out of bed at 3.00 am and go somewhere for a £40 flat payment. We need to be realistic about what that work entails and how we ensure that people are adequately remunerated. That is in hand. Responsibility for the security of the legal profession generally is not a matter for the Department alone. We have a role to play, but remuneration is only one part of the viability of the profession. For example, we can do certain things, such as the uplift to fees, and things to do with interim payments and simplification of the legal aid system, but other things really require the profession to invest. Therefore, I welcome the work that is being done by the Law Society to ensure that we have a robust profession that is not just contingent on fee arrangements but offers young people a viable career. There has to be a proactive approach to encouraging young members of the profession to practise in rural areas. We are happy to work alongside the legal profession to do that. Ultimately, it is important that it works together with the Department to ensure that people who want to enter the legal profession and to do so in their own community and in rural communities are supported and able to that. However, we have to do it within the financial constraints that my Department has to work within, as does every other Minister.

1,739 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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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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