Protests will take place at courthouses nationwide where criminal cases are due to be heard, including:

• The Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin; 
• Washington Street, Cork; 
• Tralee, Co Kerry; 
• Waterford City; 
• Clonmel, Co Tipperary; 
• Ennis, Co Clare; 
• Naas, Co Kildare; 
• Kilkenny City; 
• Limerick City; 
• Castlebar, Co Mayo; 
• Longford town; 
• Trim, Co Meath; 
• Sligo town; 
• Bray, Co Wicklow; 
• Wexford town.

The Council of The Bar of Ireland has also recommended a withdrawal of service on July 15 and July 24.

Two-thirds of criminal barristers now leave the profession after six years and “a lack of experienced and available barristers to fully and properly defend or prosecute a case leads to inequality and injustice,” Criminal State Bar Committee chairperson Seán Guerin, senior counsel, said.

"The impact of inadequate fees is having a corrosive effect on the retention of counsel in criminal practice." 

A lack of investment by successive governments is causing delays in the criminal justice system, impacting victims of crime, barristers say.

Tuesday's move is an escalation of the unprecedented action taken by criminal barristers last October, which called for an independent, meaningful, time-limited, and binding mechanism to determine the fees paid to criminal barristers by the DPP and under the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Scheme.

Following the first withdrawal of barristers' services last October, a 10% fee restoration was subsequently announced in Budget 2024.

However, even after this 10% was restored, the full range of cuts that were applied across the public sector around the time of the Financial Emergency Measures in Public Interests (Fempi) legislation, continue to apply to the profession, and the unilateral breaking of the link in 2008 to public sector pay agreements has yet to be restored, barristers say.

This is despite a Government commissioned review in 2018 acknowledging that the reversal of the cuts was justified given the level of reform and flexibilities delivered by the profession.

Chair of the Council of The Bar of Ireland, Sara Phelan, senior counsel said: “It is with regret that we have recommended to criminal practitioners that they withdraw service again.

“No barrister wishes to be in this position, but we have been left with no choice. The Government has just reported on the complete unwinding of Fempi legislation this month, yet Fempi-era cuts still apply to our profession."