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GAZETTE
M
I
W A
H
OCTOBER 1995
Law Society "sick of being made a
scapegoat" by Dublin Corporation
On both the pages of the
Irish Times
and the
Gerry Ryan Show
on RTE
Radio recently, Dublin Corporation's
spokesman, Noel Carroll, made
allegations of "unethical" conduct
by solicitors. However, he failed to
either produce evidence to support
the allegations or withdraw them
as subsequently demanded by
Law Society Director General,
Ken Murphy.
Noel Carroll - "unethical
vigour"
of
solicitors
The Irish Times
In an
Irish Times
article, the first of a
two-part series entitled 'The
Compensation Carousel'; Mr. Carroll
was reported as saying that Dublin
Corporation's annual damages bill had
already climbed to £6m in the current
year. "We have taken a two-pronged
approach to defending ourselves" he
continued. "Firstly, we are keeping
records of everything we do and how
often we do it. But we have also been
very vigorous in our criticism of the
'no foal no fee' system offered by
solicitors and of things like the lack of
censure for false claims".
Mr. Carroll proceeded to accuse
solicitors of pursuing claims against
the Corporation with "unethical
vigour" and insisted that the Law
Society needs to "get its house in
order" on what he saw as a moral
issue.
The same
Irish Times
article reported
the Law Society's Director General,
Ken Murphy,
as unrepentant about the
role of his members in giving the
Corporation a hard time. "We totally
reject the notion that there are a lot of
spurious claims being made, and we
are sick of the Law Society being
made a scapegoat by bodies like
Dublin Corporation. We have
repeatedly asked
Noel Carroll
to show
us evidence of solicitors bringing false
claims to the Corporation with little or
no response."
have to do to protect themselves is
provide reasonable care."
The Gerry Ryan Show
On the day following the
Irish Times
article,
Noel Carroll
gave a live
telephone interview to RTE Radio l ' s
Gerry Ryan Show.
He complained of a
claims culture " of epidemic
proportion" and which had "run off
the Richter scale".
He stood by his quoted remarks in the
Irish Times
about claims being
pursued with "unethical vigour" by
solicitors.
Gerry Ryan
quoted to him
Ken Murphy's demand that Mr.
Carroll produce evidence of these
allegations. Mr. Carroll implicitly
rejected any responsibility to do this
with the words "that's real legal talk".
Gerry Ryan - Quoted demand
for
evidence
"The no-fee system is not only
perfectly legitimate, it is absolutely
necessary in the absence of any civil
legal aid scheme, to provide access to
justice for people who have suffered
injury through the negligence of
others",
Ken Murphy
continued. "The
employers and public bodies who are
complaining so loudly now are
suffering because they got away with
low standards for so long. All they
Ken Murphy - "Noel Carroll should
put
up or shut up"
On the following day,
Ken Murphy
gave a 20-minute interview to the
Gerry Ryan Show
in which he outlined
the copious evidence of low standards
of health and safety in the workplace
and on the roads in Ireland. He
contended that Ireland suffers from a
"negligence culture and not a claims
culture".
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