This article is from page 10 of the 2006-03-14 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 10 JPG
THERE is now a cast-iron case for Clare County Council to establish an in-house legal department.
That is the view of independent councillor, Christy Curtin, who was commenting on figures released to The Clare People under the Freedom of Information Act, showing that the local authority spent €825,799 on legal expenses in 2005.
The figures bring to over €4 million, the amount the council has spent on legal fees over the past three years.
However, last year’s amount is significantly down on the monies spent in 2004 and 2003.
In those two years, the spending was €3.2 million or €1.6 million in each of the years concerned.
However, Cllr Curtin said yesterday that irrespective of the drop in money spent on legal expenses, over €800,000 was still a sizeable amount spent.
“It is now imperative that the council establishes its own legal office now. The case is made and the case is cast-iron.
“It is time for the County Manager, Alec Fleming, to come off the fence on this one.
“You can’t put a price on independence and it is appropriate that the council would now establish its own legal office with work on its new HQ to start soon. The manager needs to be pro-active on this.
Cllr Curtin said that any organisation with an annual budget of over €100 million would have its own in-house law agency.
The figures show that Ennis-firm, Michael Houlihan, which acts as the council’s legal advisers, received the highest proportion of costs, at €573,193.
Ennis-firm John Casey & Co. received the next highest amount at €79,694 followed by Connolly, Sellors, Geraghty & Assoc., which received €25,000 and PF Moloney & Co., which received €22,226.
The design for the council’s new corporate headquarters has not made provision for a legal department in house.