Almost €200,000 paid in legal fee for medical negligence

The largest single fee earned by a barrister working for the State Claims Agency in a medical negligence case was almost €200,000 last year, despite a new competitive procurement process introduced by the agency in 2012 to reduce costs.

New figures show the fee, of more than €195,600 earned by Murray McGrath SC, was the highest payment made for a single medical negligence case to any barrister working for the agency in the last five years.

Medical negligence cases are managed by the agency and involve claims taken against healthcare facilities, hospitals and clinical, nursing and allied healthcare practitioners such as following birth injuries or cancer misdiagnosis.

The figures, supplied by the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) to the Public Accounts Committee, are inclusive of VAT.

The second-highest single fee for a medical negligence case paid to a barrister working for the State was €126,739 earned by Adrienne Egan SC and the third highest, €105,578, was paid to Patrick Hanratty SC.

The top 10 fees paid out last year to barristers working for the agency on medical negligence cases totalled more than €952,000. Mr McGrath featured in five of the top 10 fees. In 2012, the single highest fee was more than €148,500, paid to Mr Hanratty. In total, the top 10 fees came to €1.13 million in 2012, to almost €805,00 in 2011, to almost €708,000 in 2010 and to just below €734,000 in 2009. While being responsible for its own legal costs, the agency also has to pay the costs of successful claimants in medical negligence cases.

Last year, Dermot Gleeson SC earned the single highest costs payment of almost €130,000, with the second and third-highest payments, of more than €120,000 and more than €93,000, going to Liam Reidy SC. The top 10 fees earned totalled just below €896,000.

In a letter dated July 9th, the NTMA told the Public Accounts Committee that it had introduced a procurement system “requiring barristers to engage in a competitive tendering process” under which their fees were capped at up to 25 per cent below pre-procurement levels.

Barristers were required to set out their fees, subject to the caps set by the agency, for a wide range of legal services including clinical indemnity cases in the District Court, Circuit Court and High Court. Barristers were appointed to panels in September 2013.

The NTMA also said the level of legal costs paid to claimants’ legal representatives was carefully reviewed, and wherever possible and through negotiation, the agency “seeks to achieve the maximum possible reduction in legal costs”. If a fee cannot be agreed on, a court official called the taxing master sets it.

In a covering letter sent with the data, the director of the NTMA Ciarán Breen apologised for a delay in providing it. He explained that to provide the information on plaintiffs’ costs, they had to “extrapolate from bills of costs” as plaintiffs’ senior counsel fees were not recorded separately. This involved “careful manual extraction”, Mr Breen said. “The agency does record the fees paid to senior counsel that it retains,” he added.