Justice minister mistaken about barrister's £4m legal aid earnings

The Department of Justice (DoJ) has said Naomi Long was mistaken when she claimed a barrister earned more than £3m in legal aid last year during a live interview.

Northern Ireland's justice minister was speaking to the BBC's Nolan Show about an ongoing strike by criminal defence barristers over the level of legal aid payments they receive.

She was criticised for her inaccurate remark with one MLA saying it was being used to "undermine the barristers' strike".

The DoJ said Long wanted to set the record straight and clarified that one barrister did earn £3.98m but it was over a three and half year period which ended in September.

In a statement, a DoJ spokesperson said that was just over the cumulative total paid to 53% of barristers involved in that work over the same period.

"The minister was emphasising that some counsel are well paid," they said.

"But there is an imbalance in the distribution of legal aid payments as the majority of cases are handled by a small number of barristers."

The spokesperson added between April 2022 to September 2025, 22.5% of all barristers paid were responsible for 66.6% of Crown Court cases and accounted for 74% of total expenditure.

"That means 67 barristers, involved in 6,330 cases, received £37.2m," the spokesperson said.

"The minister, however, remains committed to building a strong and sustainable legal aid system in the interests of victims, witnesses and defendants."

Responding after the minister's interview, People Before Profit MLA, Gerry Carroll, said the case was a "complete outlier and nowhere near the norm".

"This story is being used to undermine the barristers' strike for a stronger, more sustainable legal aid system to better serve defendants, victims and witnesses," he said on social media.

The DoJ spokesperson added that Long had a constructive meeting with the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) this week but added it would be inappropriate to comment further.

It is the second time the justice minister has misspoken on The Stephen Nolan Show in the past few weeks.

Last month, she prematurely claimed that the Stormont Executive had agreed to set aside £119m to settle police compensation cases linked to a major data breach.

However, no such agreement had been reached when Long made the claim on 10 December, however, ministers agreed to the settlement the following week.

The justice minister later told the programme she "just got carried away because we had so much good news for once and that's unusual in my line of work".