Legal Matters

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 17 October 2012

Wednesday, 17 October 2012

Questions (234)

Mary Lou McDonald

Question:

234. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Minister for Defence if he will provide details in tabular form for the years 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and to date in 2012 inclusive, of the arrangements entered into by him, any body under his aegis or State agency for which he has responsibility for the obtaining of advice from a senior or junior counsel and or a firm of solicitors; the subject matter for which advice was sought; the names of the barristers' and solicitors' firms concerned and the fees paid; the nature of the work concerned; if in each case the matter was advertised for competitive tender; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45311/12]

Written answers

Minister for Defence

The Chief State Solicitors Office and the State Claims Agency deal with all legal matters on behalf of the Department. As such it would seldom arise that the Department procures the services of external solicitors and barristers directly. The table below only includes costs incurred by the Department in obtaining legal advices directly and does not include legal costs in relation to litigation cases which are mainly managed by the State Claims Agency and the Chief State Solicitors Office. I can obtain that information for the Deputy should she require it.

Name of Solicitors	Subject Matter of Advice Sought	Fee Paid	Advertised for Competitive Tender?
2007
McCann Fitzgerald solicitors	Contracted to provide legal drafting, research and advice services in relation to the drafting of new Rules of Procedure and Court Martial Rules following the enactment of the Defence (Amendment) Act, 2007.	€59,895, including VAT, was paid in 2008.	Yes.

Name of Solicitors	Subject Matter of Advice Sought	Fee Paid	Advertised for Competitive Tender?
2008
B.P. McCormack & Son, Solicitors	The Defence Forces Canteen Board procured legal advice in relation to two cases. Firstly, advice was sought concerning the amendment of regulations and, secondly, legal advice was sought in a case taken by an employee of the Board.	€5,505.50, including VAT, was paid in 2008.	No.
2009
Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil
2010
Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil

Name of Solicitors	Subject Matter of Advice Sought	Fee Paid	Advertised for Competitive Tender?
2011
AL Goodbody Solicitors	Legal advice in relation to a conciliation hearing between my Department and a building contractor.	€21,168.75, including VAT, was paid in 2011.	No competitive tender competition was held due to the short timescale available between notification of the requirement for legal advice and the date of the conciliation meeting. AL Goodbody was selected to provide this service on the basis that they had been engaged by the Department of Finance to provide advice on the contract documents that were the subject matter of the hearing.
2012 to date
Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil

The Deputy should note that the overall figure of €59,895 to Mc Cann Fitzgerald Solictors for 2007 includes an amount of €6,050 including VAT, which was paid to counsel as part of this advisory requirement. This figure was omitted from a previous Parliamentary Question answered on 25th October 2011 due to an oversight and only came to light in the course of compiling the information for this answer.

While it possibly falls outside the terms of the question, for completeness, I would like to advise the Deputy that the independent selection committee for the military judge appointment sought legal advice arising from the 2010 Competition for the Military Judge. While the Committee is completely independent in its functions, the payment to senior counsel in respect of that advice in the amount of €9,075 including VAT was paid in 2011 out of my Department’s Vote.