Legal Updates

Loss of earnings in personal injuries actions

Often one of the most contentious and hard fought issues in a personal injuries action that of loss of earnings. The basic principle is that if someone is injured, and they cannot work as a result they should be compensated for their loss of income.

Assuming the medical evidence supports a claim for loss of earnings, and the loss has happened in the past (i.e. the claimant has resumed his or her duties), an accountant will generally be called on to help calculate loss of income. This can be easy to calculate (e.g. in the case of PAYE worker who had […]

By |2022-12-05T00:09:52+00:00December 5th, 2022|

HSE Data Breach – November 2022 update

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 public by officials until the 24th May that year.

On 6th June 2002, the Californian Senate Committee on Privacy, held an informational hearing on the incident to explore why the breach was not disclosed in a more proactive and timely fashion. […]

By |2022-11-14T13:40:29+00:00November 14th, 2022|

Wills promotion until 9th Sept 2022

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 advice), but in most cases we are quite confident the reduced fee will apply.

Learn more by clicking here or calling us.

By |2022-08-02T13:44:52+01:00August 2nd, 2022|

Two for the price of one? PIABs lack of analysis for complex injuries

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 of analysis is intentional or purely due to a lack of experience.

One large issue arises from the requirement of the Board (and a Court for that matter) to have special care when considering the effect of multiple injuries on the […]

By |2022-07-27T23:35:29+01:00July 27th, 2022|

HSE Hack – 12 months none the wiser

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 breach is a requirement of the GDPR. To date it seems only the Mercy Hospital in Cork notified data subjects that their data was accessed, and only those whose data was placed on the “dark web” were notified. This falls […]

By |2022-06-12T23:47:11+01:00June 7th, 2022|

Limited Liability Partnership – Please note

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, […]

By |2022-03-06T12:06:26+00:00March 6th, 2022|

Is PIAB really “better” for Claimants?

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 […]

By |2021-11-21T22:39:35+00:00November 21st, 2021|

HSE Data Breach – September Update (is the truth starting to come out?)

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

  1. Data Subject Identity data (name, surname, […]
By |2021-09-30T10:00:16+01:00September 29th, 2021|

Flawed BEAM could be open to judicial review

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 […]

By |2021-09-08T22:41:27+01:00September 8th, 2021|

2021 Conveyancing Guide now available

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. 

By |2021-09-06T22:16:12+01:00September 6th, 2021|
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