Financial Eligibility and Merits Test
Qualifying for our Service
To qualify for Legal Aid Services you must have disposable income under €18,000. Disposable income is the amount of income left after we deduct certain allowances such as tax. accommodation costs and childcare. You can contact your local Law Centre for more information on allowances granted.
You can use our online financial eligibility checker to check if you may be financially eligible by using our calculator. The eligibility calculator only checks if you might financially qualify for Legal Aid Services. It will not tell you if you can actually get legal aid for your particular case, if you need representation in court, we will examine the merits of your case.
The eligibility calculator checks your income and assets to see if you financially qualify for legal aid. It does not send any information to us and any information you enter is deleted afterwards.
We consider whether an average person would be willing to go to Court if they were paying for it with their own money. We also consider if a solicitor or a barrister acting reasonably would recommend that you go to court, knowing you were paying for it yourself and based on the facts of your case.
We may examine other factors such as:
- Do you have grounds for taking the case, or defending the case the other person is taking against you?
- Is it the best way of solving your dispute?
- Would you be likely to win your case?
- The cost to the taxpayer against the benefit you might receive if you win.
Where the welfare of a child is at stake – for example, in cases where the State is trying to take your children into care, or a dispute over who has custody of a child – we will not take into account whether or not you would be likely to win the case or a cost/benefit analysis.