Jack Chambers of Commerce, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, took Leaders’ Questions on Tuesday.
The Taoiseach was in Strasbourg on EU presidency duty. It’s all go for Micheál these days. He was back in Leinster House in the evening in time to oppose Sinn Féin’s proposed legislation on preparing the way for Irish Unity.
With the Dáil rising for the summer recess next Thursday, he’s almost out the gap and soon will be free to bestride Europe like a colossus until the middle of September – that’ll be very uncomfortable in the heat.
There is a real end of term feeling about Leinster House. It’s not a giddy excitement of the sort associated with approaching school holidays, but more of a desperate crawl to the finish line.
Still. No better man than Chambers of Commerce to inject some verve into the proceedings.
Deputies were almost nearly racing into the chamber when they heard he would be conducting the set piece of the day.
But they didn’t. There was a miserable turnout.
We were glad to see Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy arrive to join his colleagues. The party’s TDs make a point of showing up in numbers for the start of Leaders’ Questions so that Mary Lou McDonald always has strong supporting cast around her.
The same can’t be said for Government TDs. The Taoiseach and Tánaiste always attract a few Ministers but most backbenchers can’t be bothered to turn up.
Cabinet shrinking violet, Big Jim O’Callaghan, was not there to boost numbers for his leadership rival. He is embroiled in a row with solicitors who are revolting over changes to the criminal legal aid payments scheme.
Last week, when appearing before the justice committee, Big Jim got very rattled by what he said was the shouting of “abusive comments” at him from people in the public gallery – which was packed with solicitors.
There may have been some in the Dáil’s public gallery on Tuesday when Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns brought up the dispute.
For all we know, they could have been shouting abuse at Chambers of Commerce, who read out a bland statement to explain why his colleague was right to change the fee payment system. But he doesn’t have Jim’s hearing superpowers.
As the baffled gallery, politicians and witnesses at his committee meeting last week discovered, Big Jim is the only person with the auditory ability to hear these insults.
But he wasn’t present. This must have come as a relief to Carthy, chairman of the justice committee, who, like everyone else, didn’t hear any of the abuse directed at Big Ears the Minister.
We hear Carthy has been haunting the Oireachtas gym since that meeting on Monday of last week when Big Jim, a former Leinster rugby player, designated Matt as his hired muscle when he felt he was being menaced by feral legal practitioners.
“I object to the gallery shouting out abusive comments. You’re here to protect me as well.”
Had Jim been present during Holly’s airing of the criminal legal aid business – which is what the Minister is implying it has become – when she demanded proof that some solicitors are gaming the system, heaven knows what insults his antennae may have picked up.
Chambers of Commerce wasn’t subject to any sort of barracking when he read out the official line on the matter, even though he is a law graduate and a medical doctor.
He’ll be able to tend to the injured if the Minister for Justice directs Matt to run protection for him at the next justice committee meeting.
Back in the Dáil, Cairns, for her part, decided to keep it light.
“Another week of chaos in the criminal courts … hundreds of solicitors have withdrawn their services … this is an absolute disaster … this is a crisis of the justice minister’s own making … I have serious concerns,” she said.
“Where is it going to end?”
Chambers of Commerce didn’t know.
What he did know, because it was in the note he was holding, was that “the Minister for Justice has introduced an 8 per cent increase in criminal legal aid fees payable to solicitors in the Circuit Court and higher courts from July 1st, 2026. This represents total restoration of the criminal legal aid fees under FEMPI.”
Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (FEMPI) were introduced in 2009, nearly 20 years ago. The very complicated business of unpicking those measures began in 2015.
Ministers love talking about this process, which sounds like a Caravaggio painting – The Unwinding of FEMPI.
Trust Chambers to get it into his opening paragraph. And his reply just became more enthralling from then on.
The only thing which could have been more exciting was Jack announcing his immediate resignation and intention to contest the subsequent byelection.
But nothing that exciting ever happens here.
However, in the context of reform, stressed Jack, Jim O’Callaghan “assessed this area” and his department reviewed “more than 350,000 District Court cases” before developing proposals to reform the payments system.
Cairns agreed that the system needed reform, but not in the way the Minister is doing it, which “has been an absolute disaster”.
While the review may have looked into 350,000 cases, she noted that Big Jim has repeatedly cited the same three cases to bolster his argument.
“Three in 350,000 doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny,” Holly said.
She asked how the Government was going to sort out the ongoing situation.
Well, said Chambers of Commerce, Deputy Cairns set out the need for reform but she said nothing about how to do it.
Holly jumped in: “I did; I said we would check why the adjournments are happening.”
She said O’Callaghan had not given a shred of evidence to justify his move.
Chambers, in mathematical detail, explained how the solicitors are not getting a bad deal.
Problem is, the Dáil rises shortly and people needing criminal legal aid will still be brought before the courts.
Sinn Féin’s Pádraig Mac Lochlainn was similarly worried about the ongoing situation. During the Order of Business, he repeated that the changes to the legal aid scheme have brought “absolute chaos” to the system.
While a number of Dáil motions have been tabled to overturn the scheme, Mac Lochlainn said the Minister for Justice must come into the House and engage sooner rather than later.
“We can’t go into recess here in the Dáil and allow this to continue. Chaos in our system. The Minister is making a mess and he needs to engage with the stakeholders and sort this out urgently.”
Time is running out.
Big Jim might come in yet, if Matt Carthy can be persuaded to protect him in case people start silently shouting.