THE LAW Society has applied to the High Court for an order freezing the accounts of a solicitor because more than €1 million is allegedly missing from his client account.
The solicitor cannot as yet be named but details of the proceedings against him may be heard in public today if he fails to confirm loan approval for funds to make up the deficit.
The court heard yesterday that while this was not a "Lynn/Byrne-type situation" - a reference to solicitors Michael Lynn and Thomas Byrne, who owe tens of millions to financial institutions and are under Garda investigation - the sum of money allegedly missing is "significant".
Yesterday, when the matter came before the president of the High Court, Mr Justice Richard Johnson, Paul Anthony McDermott, for the Law Society, asked the judge to conduct the proceedings in public because the society believed that it "should not be done behind closed doors."
The solicitor involved had been given a number of opportunities by the society's practice regulation committee to "plug the hole" in the account, counsel said.
There had been four meetings between the solicitor's representative and the committee since early March but the deficit had still not been dealt with and it appeared that the "hole" was not going to be plugged.
Seán Sexton, representing the solicitor in question, said that his client's practice was surviving on one very singular large transaction which was the subject of these proceedings.
Disagreeing that the "hole" could not be plugged, Mr Sexton said that the solicitor had already obtained approval for one loan of €600,000 and expected approval later yesterday for a further loan of €1 million.
"I believe, if it is heard in public today, that it will frustrate the efforts of my client's advisers in plugging the hole," Mr Sexton said.
Mr Justice Johnson said at that stage he was prepared to hear the proceedings on an "in camera" basis with liberty to publish if matters were not executed by the end of the day.
However, if the second loan being organised by the solicitor was not signed up to by the end of the day, the proceedings could be published, he said.
There was "a lot of public disquiet" which needed to be "shored up", both for the sake of the Law Society and the legal profession itself, he said.