Submission on the Department of Finance Draft Budget 2025/26

The Bar of Northern Ireland has provided a submission on the Department of Finance’s Draft Budget Consultation. The Draft 2025/26 Budget sets out the proposed departmental allocations for the incoming financial year.

Our submission encouraged the Department of Finance to address the long-standing underfunding of justice, the demand led nature of Legal Aid and the economic and social value of appropriate investment in publicly funded legal services.

We recognise a recent increase in the Department of Justice budget allocation. However, our submission highlights the chronic underfunding of the Department of Justice since the devolution of policing and justice, and how this has given rise to major structural issues within the justice system.

These issues impact victims, defendants, and all court users, contributing to significant backlogs across the justice system, restricting access to justice, and impeding efforts to encourage diversity and sustainability at the Bar.

The Bar forwards an argument that funding of Legal Aid should be transferred from Resource DEL to Annually Managed Expenditure (AME). Such a move would recognise Legal Aid as a feature of our welfare system and a demand-led service that affords access to justice for some of the most vulnerable people across society.

We also suggested that in order to prioritise the finite funding available to the Executive, the Department of Finance must prioritise investment in areas proven to deliver greatest economic and social returns. Legal Aid has been evidenced to be one such area, with appropriate investment in Legal Aid delivering savings in other areas such as health and housing.

Read the submission in full here