Two firms get more than €1m for legal aid work

TWO law firms earned more than €1m from the State for defending clients in criminal cases last year.

Figures obtained by the Irish Independent show nine solicitors with Dublin firm KOD Lyons earned €1.3m between them from the criminal legal aid schemes.

Six solicitors at another Dublin firm, Connolly Finan Fleming, earned just over

€1m between them in 2016. The figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, include Vat. Under the schemes, people accused of crimes can apply for legal aid if they cannot afford to pay for representation.

There are no set means limits and it is up to individual judges whether legal aid should be granted. Payments under the scheme are listed as being paid to individual solicitors, but the sums are generally pooled into their firm’s earnings.

Twelve firms earned more than €500,000 last year, while 65 firms around the country earned €100,000 or more. Overall some €30m was paid to solicitors for criminal defence work, down

€4m on five years previously. The figures suggest there has been a shift in the criminal defence market, with large, established criminal defence firms dominating more than previously. This is thought to be partially due to conveyancing solicitors who branched into criminal law during the financial crash now returning to their main area of practice. Another factor is solicitors have had permission to attend garda station interviews since 2014, an additional service which many small firms may not have the resources to easily provide.

The third-highest-earning firm was ME Hanahoe in Dublin, whose managing partner is former Dublin football captain Tony Hanahoe. Fees earned by seven solicitors at the firm amounted to €943,424. The highest-earning firm outside Dublin was the practice led by Cork solicitor Frank Buttimer. Mr Buttimer and four other solicitors at his firm earned

€826,893 between them. Other high-earning firms under the schemes included Michael J Staines & Co

(€778,944), D’Arcy Horan

(€761,738), Cahir O’Higgins & Co (€750,954), John M Quinn Solicitors (€731,293), Fahy Bambury (€727,744), John Feaheny & Co (€609,925) and Sheehan & Partners

(€553,318). All of those firms are based in Dublin.