JUSTICE minister David Ford has said that no victim of domestic violence will be left without legal aid under proposed cuts to the system.
The minister has come in for criticism in recent months from family court lawyers who say cuts to the legal aid system will leave vulnerable women and children without representation.
In England and Wales - where changes have already been introduced - the family court system has been thrown into disarray with estranged parents forced to represent themselves in court leading to allegations of 'Jeremy Kyle'-style justice.
Responding to criticism Mr Ford said that the finer details were still decided but said: "If there are cases of domestic violence we will not be removing legal aid".
"Some of what's being said is more about the changes to legal aid in England and Wales rather than reflective of what's happening here.
"One of the advantages of coming behind that is we're learning lessons from what's gone wrong there.
"They are doing things that we are not proposing do, we've looked at what they've done and we're not going there.
"The overall picture will still be that we are paying more in legal aid than England and Wales but we will be avoiding some of the excesses.
"In cases where there are care orders and so on we will still be funding - and we will still be funding private cases on some key points", he said.
Mr Ford said that reform of legal aid was needed to prevent the use of family courts and access to children as a "weapon" between warring parents.
"I had a letter from a constituent who had a modest paying job but enough to mean she wasn't getting legal aid," he said.
"Her ex-husband was entitled to legal aid and he was continually going back to court over precise details and times of access and so on, legal aid was becoming a weapon."
"If it's a divorce and there are issues over care of the children there will still be full legal aid for the main hearing, but if someone wants to quip about access they don't get two lawyers in front of a judge they get mediator who says 'there needs to be common sense'."
The minister added that legal aid would continue to be made available for women under threat of violence.
"One of the first things we did around non-molestation orders was that we removed the earnings limit, so that someone could get legal aid if she needed an emergency non molestation order", Mr Ford said.
"You might do a financial assessment afterwards about whether someone should make a contribution but you don't hold them up getting into court.
"That was a case when we showed that we were responding to real need".
And the minister added: "We haven't worked out the detail but I can't see if you're working on a case were there was significant violence that legal aid would not be available.
"Some cases are taken over relatively trivial matters, clearly domestic violence is not a trivial matter."