This article is from page 13 of the 2013-02-26 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 13 JPG
LESS legal aid and more gardaí was proposed by Fine Gael councillor Tony Mulqueen at Friday’s adjourned meeting of the county council.
The Ennis-based councillor received the support of Cllr Patricia McCarthy (Ind) from Shannon in his motion to “call on the Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, TD, that free legal aid in criminal cases be given only once and that repeat offenders pay for their legal costs with their own money.”
“Widely known criminal and serial criminals are abusing the system day in day out,” said Cllr Mulqueen.
He added that many of these criminals have undeclared money and money hidden away in off shore accounts.
“The savings from such a move could be used for Garda recruitment,” he said.
“I think we need to strengthen up free legal aid. People are using and abusing the system,” added Cllr McCarthy.
Last October,