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 any debts, liabilities or obligations which are incurred for the purpose of carrying on the business of the LLP (whether these are liabilities of the LLP, of himself or herself, of another partner or partners in the LLP or of any employee, […]
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 income, and if you were fully better after six or twelve months the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) was likely to make a reasonably hand of your claim. This is not currently the case, and we would advise any […]
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 Act. In the notification to the Data Protection Commission the stark facts were set out bluntly; approximately 4.9 million people had been affected by the breach, and the data disclosed to certain nefarious actors included
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 demands by the end of 2021.
The full article can be accessed here
We would encourage all farmers who did succeed in abiding by the terms of the BEAM scheme to appeal the matter to the Department of Agriculture, as […]
We realised our old Conveyancing Guide was now hopelessly out of date, so there was nothing for it only to update it for 2021. We try to be as honest as possible, don’t do any hard sell, try and get you to jump through hoops, or make your life more difficult than it needs to be in any way, that goes for both downloading the guide and retaining us as your Solicitors.
As always please do not hesitate to contact us if you need a quote to buy, sell or re-mortgage using our online form.
We note that today the office of the Irish Data Protection Commission levied a fine of €225m on Whatsapp, a messaging arm of Facebook. This was done in the context of outrage from a number of other European Data Protection Commissioners. They felt quite rightfully that the original proposed fine of €30m was far too low given the revenues of Facebook. It was not a sufficient incentive to obey the law.
Overall, it looks very bad for Ireland that the Irish DPC had to be dragged kicking a screaming to levy a sensible fine for egregious breaches of European law. None […]
It appears that many solicitors have expressed their views on the legal issues that will arise from people returning to the workplace post Covid. The only common ground shared is that “there are legal issues!” The following should not be taken as legal advice, and has no basis more reliable than our own meandering experience (to misquote Baz Luhrmann).
Almost certainly yes. The following is an extract from a tech company’s contract:
Your place of work will be [Office address]. You may be required to undertake normal business […]
Our offices will be closed from 5.30pm on Thursday 1st April 2021 until 9am on Thursday 8th April for the Easter Holidays. In the case of an emergency please leave a voicemail at the switchboard; the contents of which will be automatically emailed to the Solicitor on duty.
We have had a number of queries from clients with developmental and agricultural holdings in respect of the legality (or illegality) of cutting hedges during the “closed season”. The Wildlife Act 1976 (as amended) provides that it is illegal to cut hedges from the 1st March to the 31st August. This is for the very good reason that birds and wildlife tend to be nesting and active in the hedgerows during that time of the year.
Farmers and developers often note that it is very difficult, or even impossible to maintain hedges in fields during the winter. It is however worth […]
