Matt Carthy: “I appeal to the minister to not have a repeat of this situation, to stop the guillotine and the rushing, and to actually…”

These are hard-working families, in many cases, where you have two incomes coming into a household, yet at the end of every single month they are stretched.

The real message from today is that Government need to move beyond soundbites and announcements and move to ensure that the gardaí have the powers, the resources and the numbers that are necessary to actually police whatever proposals are…

It devastates lives, it damages families and affects every part of our society. Behind every statistic is a victim, a survivor, a child, a family member whose life has been changed by abuse.

Solicitors were resigning from the criminal legal aid panel....others with no legal expertise are representing themselves