At a Legislative Assembly, Belfast Telegraph said Northern Ireland Justice Minister David Ford insisted that the cuts to the legal aid budget, which will amount to multimillions of pounds, will not cost lawyers their jobs. Ford reportedly disclosed to the said assembly that the experts from the legal profession had failed to provide sufficient proof that the annual £100 million budget cut could result to redundancies in cases.
However, Social Democratic and Labour Party's Alban Maginness, argued about Ford's rationale behind the massive cut to the legal aid, and even commenting that the minister was not living in the real world. The Irish paper said Maginness, who is also a qualified barrister, said the reduction in the legal aid budget could impair the services of barristers in the region.
Belfast Telegraph said Ford, who has already implemented measures to reduce spending in criminal cases for legal aid, is looking to introduce the same measures on civil cases. Ford reportedly stressed earlier that the current total spending on providing legal services in civil cases in Northern Island has ballooned to £100 million when compared to the allocated budget of £75 million.
Also in the assembly, Members of the Legislative Assembly had questioned Ford about the practical impact of the legal aid cut on the legal profession itself. Ford said that his department had conducted a review of the effects of curtailing the budget prior to proposing and implementing the measures.
"The assessment concluded that there would be no adverse impact on legal firms. On the basis of the information currently available there is no evidence that my proposed reforms to legal aid will result in job losses or redundancies. I acknowledge that these reforms may require practitioners to consider more efficient business models and to adapt for the future," Belfast Telegraph quoted Ford in the assembly.
