Late Vicky Phelan's solicitor the top paid in medical negligence cases in 2023 and 2024

Gordon Deegan

The legal firm operated by solicitor Cian O’Carroll, who represented the late Vicky Phelan in her landmark High Court CervicalCheck case, has received legal costs of €17.47 million (all figures including 23 per cent VAT) connected to medical negligence cases taken against the State over the past two years.

New figures provided by the Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, show that Mr O’Carroll’s Cashel firm received the highest amount amongst plaintiff firms in medical negligence cases against the State in 2024 and 2023.

The figures provided to Aidan Farrelly in a written Dáil reply show that Mr O' Carroll’s firm received €9.09 million in legal costs in 2024 for 33 cases and €8.38 million in 2023 for 22 cases.

The figures show that the top 10 best-paid plaintiff firms shared €36.18 million in legal costs last year, with Augustus Cullen Law Solicitors receiving €6.02 million and Michael Boylan Solicitors receiving €5.22 million.

Cantillons Solicitors received €4.65 million, followed by Callan Tansey Solicitors, who received €4.38 million, and Damien Tansey Solicitors, which received €2.53 million in legal costs.

Last year, plaintiff legal firms in medical negligence cases received €70.5 million, which was an 11.5 per cent increase on plaintiff legal costs of €63.22 million in 2023.

Asked to comment on the figures, Mr O’Carroll said on Tuesday: “Our firm continues to specialise almost exclusively in cases of very serious harm or catastrophic injuries arising from medical negligence, and we have a team of 22 people including eight solicitors who work on these cases."

He said that the number of cases “is not particularly large and this is a reflection of the complexity of the cases themselves, typically arising from either fatal cancer misdiagnosis or birth-related brain injuries to babies that, as you can imagine, result in life-long care needs”.

“All such legal costs include not only our fees but the fees of the team of brilliant barristers that we have the privilege to work with on behalf of our clients.

“In addition, the costs include all of the expert reports required to investigate and prove these cases both in terms of who is at fault for the injury but also very detailed opinions on what those injuries mean for our client in terms of life-long care, accommodation, loss of earnings, assistive technologies and the like," he said.

“Many of these cases will have 15 or even 20 experts involved due to the complex nature of the harm caused by the State’s negligence. All of this is reflected in these legal costs.

“The overall trend in legal costs on a case-by-case assessment is actually downward over the last decade, and this is largely due to the excellent work of the NTMA’s legal costs unit in protecting the State’s interests.

He said: “What has been growing is the value of special damages for these victims of the most serious cases, and this is mostly because the cost of medical care and treatment continues to rise. It is this inflation that has led to the significant increase in the costs of negligence within the health service.”

On cases concerning CervicalCheck, Mr O’Carroll said: “We do have several cases still ongoing, but mostly these are new cases arising from ongoing serious errors within CervicalCheck.

He said: “It is shocking to say but three of our clients have now died and eight have been seriously harmed by negligence arising in the screening service since the Scally reforms that we were told would ‘fix’ the gross negligence within CervicalCheck.”

The total amount paid out by the State Claims Agency (SCA) in compensation in medical negligence damages cases in 2024 totalled €210.46 million compared to €275.9 million in 2023.

Legal firms representing the State Claims Agency (SCA) in medical negligence cases last year received €32.45 million in legal costs, with Comyn Kelleher Tobin receiving the top amount at €5.02 million, followed by Mason Hayes & Curran at €4.72 million, Hayes Solicitors receiving €4.67 million, and Ronan Daly Jermyn receiving €4.33 million.

Expert costs in medical negligence cases last year totalled €12.1 million, which followed €10.76 million paid out to experts in 2023.