Some solicitors have been encouraging futile late applications to the Residential Institutions Redress Board by former residents at industrial schools and reformatories, so they can collect a substantial fee, the chairman and founder of Survivors of Child Abuse (Soca) UK, Mick Waters, has said.
Fee amounts involved ranged from between an estimated €9,000 and €11,000, he said last night. He was aware of one former resident who had threatened suicide because he was unable to pay the large bill he received from a solicitor when his application to the redress board failed.
Costs in failed applications to the board, which involve the same preparation as successful ones and also take between eight and nine months to process, are not covered by the board and must be borne by the applicant. Costs in successful applications are paid by the board.
December 16th, 2005 was the closing date for applications to the redress board, but late applications were accepted where it could be proven a person was unable to give legal instruction because of mental illness or where it could be proven a solicitor was at fault in failing to submit the application on time.
It is understood an estimated 1,500 late applications were submitted to the redress board, about a third of these from Irish people in the UK, and that 1,350 were rejected.
Of the remaining 150, it is believed eight were accepted, six on mental health grounds and two because solicitors failed to get applications in on time.
However, last night Mr Waters suggested to The Irish Times that "some unscrupulous solicitors" were telling people that "if enough applications were submitted then the redress board will have to relent and take these applications on board".
He continued: "We are talking about very vulnerable people who piranha solicitors want to take advantage of by giving false hope to them. This is a form of abuse.
"The fact of the matter is that the cost of making an application to the redress board is between €9,000 and €11,0000, and as the vast majority of the applications have little or no chance of succeeding, the cost of the application falls to the applicant as the redress board will not pay the costs for failed applications."
Soca UK has called a public meeting on the matter for 1pm on Saturday next, at the Ruskin Hall Members Club, Victoria Road, Aston in Birmingham.
"Soca UK would like to stress that the redress board is in no way to blame for the behaviour of a minority of solicitors using this sharp practice," Mr Waters said.
In January last year, the Law Society of Ireland referred 22 complaints involving 12 solicitors' firms to the Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal for inquiry over alleged double charging in redress board cases. It followed complaints from abuse victims that solicitors, whose costs had already been covered by the board, were also charging them.
Responding to those complaints, in October 2005 the Law Society set up a helpline for people who believed they had been double charged by solicitors in their dealings with the redress board.
The society subsequently received 162 complaints of double charging. Seventy-five were referred to the Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal, which is independent of the Law Society.
It was found that, of the remaining 87 cases, in 36 there had been no deduction/additional charge; in 29 other cases it was found a charge/deduction was justified, while in 22 cases the complaints referred to other matters.