Four earned over €500,000 from work in criminal courts

DESPITE criticism from lawyers of the rates paid by the State, several barristers earned substantial six-figure sums for work in the criminal courts last year.

It is commonplace for barristers specialising in criminal law to alternate between acting as defence counsel and acting as prosecutors.

The four best paid criminal barristers last year, who each earned over €500,000, did both defence and prosecution work in 2016.

The data also showed that

46 criminal barristers earned

€200,000 or more during the year.

All did defence work while

36 of them also acted as counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions in other cases.

The average amount earned by the 660 barristers who did either defence work, prosecution work or both was €55,167.

However, this figure is skewed somewhat by the high earnings of some barristers and the data shows two-thirds of practitioners earned less than

€50,000 a year. Dominic McGinn SC, who acted as lead prosecution counsel in the Sean FitzPatrick trial, earned €581,498 from prosecution and defence work.

Veteran barrister Patrick Gageby SC, whose high-profile clients have included wife-killer Joe O’Reilly, earned

€549,405 from prosecution and defence work.

Another prominent criminal barrister, Michael Bowman SC, earned €509,811 for criminal work, the vast majority of which was for acting as a defence counsel.

Caroline Biggs SC earned

€500,476, with three-quarters of those earnings from defence work and a quarter from acting as a prosecution counsel.

The best paid prosecution counsel last year was Paul O’Higgins SC on €449,623, who has been involved in a number of trials related to Anglo Irish Bank. He did no defence work in 2016.

Úna Ní Raifeartaigh, who later became a High Court judge, earned €407,661, the vast majority of which was for prosecution work.

Bernard Condon SC, the lead defence counsel in the Sean FitzPatrick trial, earned €403,232 for criminal courts work.

The majority of his earnings were from acting as a defence counsel.

Sean Gillane SC, the lead prosecutor in the Jobstown trial, earned €398,806 from criminal courts work, most of which came from defending clients.

The best paid junior counsel in the criminal courts were Edward Doocey BL (€398,490), Kieran Kelly BL (€397,268) and Lorcan Staines BL (€372,441).

Mr Doocey’s earnings were solely from defence work, while Mr Kelly and Mr Staines acted for the defence and the DPP in various cases.