17/08/2015
The Sunday Times
A United Nations body has received two complaints that Ireland's "prohibitively expensive" legal costs are restricting access to justice. The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe has set a deadline of September 15 for the Department of the Environment to submit a formal response to the first complaint. Both were made under the Aarhus Convention which governs environmental issues and which Ireland ratified in June 2012.
In his complaint, Kieran Fitzpatrick, a law student at NUI Galway, claimed the government is reluctant to address the "sensitive" issue of legal costs "despite three years of promises to reform the legal system".
The Legal Services (Regulation) Bill was published by Alan Shatter, the former justice minister, in October 2011 and criticised by the Law Society and Bar Council. It has not been passed by the Oireachtas, despite a government promise last year that it would be enacted by this summer.
Fitzpatrick said the rule in Irish courts that costs are awarded against the loser of an action is designed to "deter litigation". He said the system of adjudicating legal costs by using a taxing master lacks transparency and puts litigants at a disadvantage because, if they fail to prove they were overcharged, they must pay 8% stamp duty to the state.
The Department of the Environment said it "is currently considering all elements" of the Fitzpatrick complaint "and a response will be provided to the committee within the deadline specified". The second complaint was lodged by Pat Swords, a Dublin engineer, and two others on behalf of seven wind-farm protest groups. Swords took judicial-review proceedings in 2012 challenging the legality of Ireland's renewable-energy programme, including grants of planning permission and funding for environmental projects without public participation in decision-making.
