There are a number of forms of State-funded legal aid in Ireland but, in summary, they will be of no use to you unless charged with a reasonably serious crime or involved in family law proceedings. … It is almost unheard of for legal aid to be obtained to initiate a civil, non-family law case. In addition, many people who would not qualify for legal aid would still find it prohibitively expensive to fund many cases (particularly those relating to serious personal injury or medical negligence). Conditional fee arrangements, commonly known as no foal/no fee, fill the void. Despite this fact, cases which usually involve such arrangements are often characterised as being somehow of questionable merit or a feature of ambulance chasing.

It is, presumably, fear of the profession being tarnished by such characterisation that led the Law Society to severely restrict how solicitors can advertise their services. … Fee arrangements are currently the subject of debate in the UK, … Andrew Dismore suggests on the Guardian website that the UK reforms might only reduce legal costs by scaring potential claimants off. … Dismore’s charge that the UK Government’s proposals are unfair because they favour insurance companies have some resonance here. …