Lawyers' overcharging 'disgusting' - Honohan

The State's most senior court official has attacked unscrupulous lawyers that overcharged abuse victims who received compensation from the Residential Institutions Redress Board.

The Master of the High Court, Edmund Honohan SC, is the highest ranking legal officer to come out against solicitors alleged to have taken advantage of vulnerable clients.

Some 80 complaints have been lodged with the Law Society by people who claim they were double-charged by solicitors representing them before the Redress Board.

Mr Honohan said today he wanted to make it clear to the public and the victims that the solicitors involved represented only a tiny minority of lawyers.

"Most lawyers share my sense of outrage about what has happened," he told RTÉ Radio this morning.

"Most lawyers feel that what has happened in relation to the Redress Board is really quite disgusting. I think the public and the victims are entitled to know that the legal system is behind them."

Mr Honohan, who is not a judge but who is responsible for hearing discovery motions and applications prior to cases going to trial, lamented the fact that there appears to be a culture of greed developing among some younger lawyers.

The incidents with the Redress Board show some lawyers "just wanted to put their hands in the till," he said. "Obviously this isn't all lawyers. Most solicitors handling these matters dealt with them in an ethical and honest way.

"But there does seem to be a tendency now for lawyers to view the case as being a money-making exercise," he said.

He will tell a conference of solicitors in Cork tomorrow that there needs to be a fundamental change in the way they approach cases. He said during his work he is increasingly coming across cases where "unnecessary" applications are made by solicitors to bump up their costs.

"It is a consistent pattern both here and in England that interlocutory applications . . . have multiplied out of all reason," he noted.

He said he plans to make "practical suggestions" how some limits could be applied to this kind of expenditure, including introducing more transparency in the way fees are calculated.

He argued that more attention should be made at the interlocutory stage to the range of applications involved. "As each stage is processed, a decision should be made about costs and the costs should be awarded one way or the other."