The lawyer who represented the late Vicky Phelan in the pivotal High Court case concerning the CervicalCheck scandal says that he acts, or has acted, for 17 women or their families who have died "from the gross negligence in the operation and management of CervicalCheck".
Solicitor Cian O'Carroll said that overall he "would be quite confident in saying that to date, at least 30 women have died from these shameful and avoidable errors".
"The human cost of these failings cannot yet be counted as cancers continue to be diagnosed that should have been detected by CervicalCheck’s labs," he added.
In a new written Dáil reply to co-leader of the Social Democrats Catherine Murphy on the issue, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said that the State Claims Agency (SCA) has received 378 CervicalCheck claims including psychological claims brought by family members.
"In relation to the 378 claims received, 156 have been concluded," Mr O'Carroll said.
According to Minister Donnelly, "legal costs amounting to €4.76m have been paid in respect of CervicalCheck claims to date".
He said that these legal costs include fees paid to mediation services, which he said is consistent with the SCA’s policy of using mediation wherever possible to resolve these claims in a non-adversarial manner.
Figures provided by Minister Donnelly show that Mr O'Carroll’s Co Tipperary firm received €4.75m (all figures include 23% VAT) in legal costs in 2021, concerning 24 separate claims made to the SCA for medical negligence cases.
Cian O’Carroll Solicitors received the highest amount paid out to by the SCA to a plaintiffs’ firm in 2021, and the €4.75m follows €5.4m in legal costs paid out to the firm in 2020.
The figures also show that Michael Boylan Litigation Law firm received €4.1m in legal costs relating to 18 cases in 2021; Augustus Cullen Law Solicitors received €2.19m concerning 19 cases; Cantillon Solicitors received €2m in legal costs in 12 cases; Callan Tansey Solicitors received €1.98m concerning 22 cases and Damien Tansey Solicitors received €1.69m concerning 13 cases.
The monies paid to legal firms also included the money paid to barristers and experts representing the plaintiffs.
Mr O'Carroll said that the fee for the solicitors involved, the Instructions Fee, "forms only a fraction of the overall costs figure reported".
"Nevertheless, medical negligence cases are very complex, usually hard fought by the health service provider and require huge inputs of time by legal teams on behalf of the injured party and so the legal costs that relate to this type of case are significant," he said.
"The more complex a case, the more time is involved and that leads to higher legal costs. You do not get paid as a percentage of the damages and we do not charge our clients a fee," Mr O'Carroll added
The figures also show that legal firms representing the SCA in clinical care claims also receive substantial sums - Hayes Solicitors received €4.63m concerning 248 claims in 2021; Mason Hayes and Curran Solicitors received €3.84m concerning 148 claims; Ronan Daly Jermyn Solicitors received €3.13m for 106 cases and Comyn Kelleher Tobin received €2.7m for 97 cases.
Mr O’Carroll said that his practice is almost exclusively devoted to working for the victims of medical accidents and last year the office was 25 strong including ten solicitors who are all engaged in medical negligence cases.
He stated that the costs all relate to cases that the State fought at least to trial stage.
"While they say that they seek to mediate cases to spare the injured party from an adversarial litigation process, our experience is that they only seek mediation on the eve of trial. This does little to ease the stress on plaintiffs," Mr O'Carroll said.
He stated that "if the HSE was more forthcoming with acknowledging a mistake when it happens and then set out steps they are taking to avoid a repetition of the mistake, a lot of people would not feel the need to take legal action".
