Law body criticised on fees response

Liam Reid, Political Reporter

The Residential Institutions Redress Board has criticised the approach of the Law Society to dealing with the issue of alleged double charging of victims of child abuse and neglect in children's homes, and accused it of not being proactive enough in dealing with the complaints.

It also suggested the society was adopting an "ad-hoc" response to the problem. Meanwhile, the Government has indicated it will introduce legislation on overcharging if the Law Society fails to deal adequately with complaints.

In a rare public intervention, the Residential Institutions Redress Board published a letter to the society, in response to a request by the solicitors' regulatory and representative body for help to send a letter to an estimated 7,000 compensation applicants, telling them about the complaints procedure against solicitors.

In the response to the society, published last night on its website, the board said: "Much of this difficulty could have been averted if the Law Society had been more proactive in the manner in which it dealt with the original complaints."

Welcoming the society's investigation, the letter acknowledged that the society had previously been unable to investigate specific complaints in relation to the redress board because of legislation protecting the confidentiality of clients.

That legislation was relaxed in July by the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, following representations by the Law Society.

"It is, however, noteworthy that there was nothing in the original legislation to prevent the Law Society taking other action of a general nature such as writing a stern note to its members pointing out the inappropriateness of the alleged deductions," the letter said.

"The board regrets that such a proactive stance apparently was not taken by the Law Society."

It also refused the request to pass on the Law Society letter to redress board applicants, citing concerns that it could breach applicants' anonymity and right to confidentiality by bypassing solicitors and writing directly to them, while there could also be legal problems in doing so.

The letter criticised the Law Society for making public the request to the redress board before it had first consulted with board staff.

"The airing of such a suggestion, before seeking the advice of those whose co-operation is necessary for its implementation, might tend to show that policy has been formed in an ad-hoc way in this most serious matter," the letter said.

A Government spokeswoman said last night that the Government would continue to monitor "the effectiveness of the response of the Law Society and if necessary will introduce legislation in this area to protect the vulnerable from exploitation and further distress".

She added: "The Attorney General is continuing to pursue correspondence with the Law Society in this matter." It is understood that if the Government is not satisfied that adequate action is taken by the society, it will introduce specific legislation outlawing the double charging of redress board applicants.