Payments to solicitors' clients by the Law Society's Compensation Fund grew from €621,376 in 2004 to €2,374,581 between 2004 and 2006, the last year for which figures are available.
Some of this is accounted for by compensation to the clients of Niall Colfer, who was referred to the president of the High Court earlier this week for an application for striking off. Discrepancies in his accounts first emerged in 2004, when he gave an undertaking not to practise as a solicitor.
His practice was frozen by the High Court in December of that year, when he was ordered not to reduce his assets below €1.4 million.
The compensation fund has paid this amount to clients of Mr Colfer since then.
The total amount paid by the fund rose to €1,596,082 in 2005, an increase of almost €1 million.
It rose again in 2006, to €2,374,581, an increase of almost €800,000, resulting in a quadrupling of compensation fund payments in two years. In 2003 and 2002 the figures were €603,931 and €583,323 respectively, close to the 2004 figure, and had actually fallen from €981,520 in 2001.
No figures are yet available for 2007, though the figures are expected to remain at least at the level of recent years, as clients of Michael Lynn and Thomas Byrne make claims on it.
These clients are unlikely to include the banks, as their relationship with the solicitors was not a solicitor/ client, but a bank/customer one. The maximum the fund can pay to any one client has been set by legislation at €700,000.
However, there has been no increase in the level of payments by solicitors into the fund for the past four years. It has remained at €400 per solicitor, despite inflation and the increased demands on the fund. The contribution for 2008 remains at €400.
In fact, there has been a decrease in the level of contributions to the fund since the mid-1990s, when it stood at €762 per solicitor for four years. This followed the Elio Malocco affair, when the fund paid €721,000 to clients whose money he had misappropriated.
The increase in the number of solicitors over the past decade has contributed to the growth in the compensation, without the need for an increase in contributions. The compensation fund currently stands at €31 million.
In addition, the society has insurance of another €30 million against claims for misappropriation of solicitors' clients' money.
Solicitors are also required to have professional indemnity insurance as a condition of holding a practising certificate, which means that funds will always be available if a solicitor is successfully sued by a client.
Most negligence cases against solicitors are settled out of court.
A solicitor who is found to have expropriated significant amounts of money is usually the subject of an application from the Law Society to the High Court for a freezing order against his or her practice. This effectively means the end of his or her career as a solicitor.