Calculating your contributions towards civil legal aid and advice

No contribution
You don't have to pay a contribution if:

• Tusla is asking the Court to take your children into foster care or to allow its staff to supervise your children in your own home
• You are taking or defending proceedings in the District Court for a barring order, safety order, protection order, or interim barring order

There are a small number of other circumstances where we won’t charge a contribution. These include cases where we give legal advice to a person who alleges that they have been a victim of rape or sexual assault or represent them at the trial of the person who has been accused of committing the rape or sexual assault. 
 
Asylum cases
If you’re applying for legal aid to help you with a claim for asylum or subsidiary protection in Ireland, you’ll only need to pay a contribution of €10.

My only source of income is social welfare
If your sole source of income is social welfare, you will pay an advice contribution of €30. The income part of your aid contribution will be €130. The capital part is calculated the same as below.

All other cases
Your advice contribution is calculated based on your disposable income alone. We deduct €11,500 from your disposable income. Your advice contribution is one-tenth of what is left, but will be no less than €30 and no more than €150.

Your aid contribution consists of two parts. One is based on your disposable income. We deduct €11,500 from your disposable income. The income part of the contribution is quarter of what is left + €130.

If your disposable assets are less than €4,000, your aid contribution is only based on your income.

If your disposable assets are between €4,000 - €54,000, we will deduct €4,000 from your disposable capital and take 2.5% of what is left and add it to the income part of your contribution.

If it is over €54,000, we will deduct €54,000 from your disposable capital and take 5% of what is left. We will add €1,250 (which is 2.5% of €50,000) and the income part of your contribution to that amount.

Example

Applying for a waiver of contribution
If you believe you cannot afford to pay your contribution, you can apply to have it waived.