On the 5th April 2002 a hacker gained access to the Stephen P. Teale Data Center in California. The nondescript data centre was used by the state to process personal data relating to state employees. In total it is said that private information relating to 265,000 state employers was compromised on that day. The existence of hack was not made [...]
For the month of August we are helping people make their wills for €150. This fee will cover taking instructions which can be done online or in person and covers all work associated with ensuring your will is properly drafted and executed. In some circumstances this fee might not be appropriate (for assistance if you need additional taxation or legal [...]
Having reviewed a number of awards from PIAB since the introduction of the new “Personal Injuries Guidelines” (or the PIGs as one might call them) there seems to be a clear trend from the Board in misapplying the Guidelines and undervaluing injuries. Congratulatory comments from PIAB as to their stunning ability to reduce awards makes one worder if this paucity [...]
We have been a little quiet with our updates on this in the last number of months. It remains something of a mystery to us why 12 months after the hack the HSE has not informed any service users that they data may have been accessed in the course of the attack. The obligation to notify data subjects of a [...]
The law offices of O'Dowd Solicitors will be closed from Thursday the 14th May 2022 to Wednesday 20th May 2022 inclusive. In case of an emergency please email info@odowd.ie or leave a voice mail, both of which will be monitored for the duration.
PLEASE NOTE that with effect from 7th March 2022 ("the relevant date"): (a) O'Dowd Solicitors has been authorised to operate, and is now operating, as a Limited Liability Partnership ("LLP"); (b) as set out in Section 123, of the Legal Services Regulation Act, 2015 (subject to the exceptions listed therein), a partner in O'Dowd Solicitors has no personal liability for [...]
We are expanding and we are looking to add to our team, come work with us! the positions available are as follows: General Practice Solicitor The successful candidate will support the existing solicitors and will have a varied (and interesting) caseload. The role will initially involve the following: Managing District Court family and civil litigation files and appearing in the [...]
Our view is that without proper representaion a claimaint is walking into a lion's den when engaging with PIAB. The system for resolving personal injuries claims in Ireland is currently broken. We would probably not have said this 24 months ago. We would have said that if your injuries were minor, if you did not have any huge loss of [...]
On the 15th May 2021 the Data Protection Officer (DPO) for the HSE made a data breach notification to the Data Protection Commission. In that notification he said that a day earlier the HSE suffered a data security breach of its IT systems. After some difficulty we have obtained the official data breach notification pursuant to the Freedom of Information [...]
Mícheál O'Dowd of our office was quoted today in Agriland, a leading news publication for agricultural matters in Ireland on the unworkable and illogical nature of the Beef Exceptional Aid Measure (BEAM) Scheme introduced in 2019 to assist drystock farmers. Over 3200 farmers are currently facing repayment demands from the Department of Agriculture, and it likely thousands more will face [...]
