Free legal aid help sought mainly for family law and debt issues

Almost 40 per cent of callers to the free legal advice centres in Westmeath last year had a family law query, while a further 19 per cent had debt-related issues.
In total, according to the free legal rights group, FLAC, some 243 people called at their clinics in Westmeath in 2014.
The clinics are held at the Citizens Information Services (CIS) centres in Athlone and Mullingar.
After family law issues and debt, wills were the third most common type of query, similar to last year.
However, consumer queries replaced employment queries as the fourth most common type of query.
The figures were released as part of the launch of FLAC’s annual report for 2014.
Yvonne Woods, communications officer with FLAC, paid tribute to the solicitors across the country – including 16 from Westmeath – who voluntarily give their time to the service.
“They don’t ask for anything – they do get something out of it, I won’t lie about that: they get a lot of satisfaction out of it,” she says.
Deborah Dwyer, development manager with CIS in Westmeath, revealed that eight solicitors in Mullingar, and eight in Athlone, go on the rota for the service.
“We issue a rota in advance for the two centres,” she said, adding that the clinics are held on Monday nights, and the Mullingar Clinic is on the first and last Mondays of the month 6.30-8.30pm, while Athlone’s is on the second and fourth.
Deborah explained that CIS assists callers by going through their rights and options with them, but if further legal opinion is required, then the callers can be referred on to one of the solicitors.
As the figures were released, FLAC director general Noeline Blackwell said: “You might say FLAC’s legal information helpline is a social thermometer for issues affecting people in Ireland and 2014 has been our busiest year yet.
“For the second year running, our phone-line saw a big increase in calls on housing problems, including landlord and tenant queries, up 81.7% over 2013.
“This is on top of an 83% increase over 2012. This makes housing the second largest area of enquiry on our phoneline, with family law and credit and debt law problems the other top areas.”
Westmeath’s Citizens Information Services, from where the FLACs are run, are located at: Elliot House, St Mary’s Square, Athlone; Mullingar CIC, Mount Street, Mullingar.
• This week, FLAC also launched its latest legal information booklet on 'Neighbour Disputes’, supported by the Civil Service Charities Fund. It is available at flac.ie/publications/legal-info-leaflet-neighbour-disputes.