Author Archives: Simon McGarr
Reports of Compensation for PIP Breast Implant injuries
Today’s Irish Sun has, on its front page, a story suggesting that compensation will be given to women who were the victims of PIP Breast Implants injuries. Today’s reports have been mostly focussed on an agent (not a solicitor’s firm) who are offering to act as a middleman between women and French lawyers who have had some interim success in suing a certification body under French law in the French courts for damages arising from the PIP scandal. As an Irish […]
New Emergency UK Data Retention Law- What’s actually happening?
In case you missed it with all the World Cup and such, last night UK Labour backbencher Tom Watson put out an urgent call for attention. The UK Gov were trying to bundle a replacement mass surveillance law through Parliament with nobody looking. Unlike here, the UK never brought in a standalone law for Data Retention, just a Ministerial Order directly based on the annulled Directive. As a result the UK were running on empty, legally speaking, ever since the […]
Coroner’s Act 1962
We have written previously about the Coroner’s Court system. If you find a dead body, you are legally obliged to report it. Once certain officials or persons in certain positions become aware of a report of remains lying in the district, they are under a duty to notify the local Coroner. Section 18(1) of the Coroner’s Act 1962 says 18.—(1) Where a coroner is informed that the body of a deceased person is lying within his district and that a medical certificate […]
Registration of Deaths, 1860-1996
It’s difficult to know how to react constructively to the story of the bodies of children in Tuam. Philip Boucher-Hayes has quoted the response of Gardaí as to whether there was an inquiry ongoing into hundreds of of children’s remains being found. …there is no suggestion of any impropriety and there is no Garda investigation. A lawyer’s instinct is to look to law. I thought it might be helpful to look at the legislation around the registration of deaths. Perhaps ironically, the Irish […]
EU Commission Recommendations and Legal Costs
The EU Commission published its assessment and recommendations for Ireland yesterday. Here’s the recommendation regarding legal services. Reduce the cost of legal proceedings and services and foster competition, including by enacting the Legal Services Regulation Bill by the end of 2014, including its provision allowing the establishment of multi-disciplinary practices, and by seeking to remove the solicitor’s lien. Monitor its impact, including on the costs of legal services. Take executive steps to ensure that the Legal Services Regulatory Authority is operational without delay and that […]
CJEU Judgement: Google -v- AEPD and the rise of EU privacy law
The Court of Justice of the European Union is the highest court in the EU. This year has seen a landmark set of judgments from the court around issues of Privacy and, more broadly, the assertion of the Charter of Fundamental Rights as a significant Human Rights document. The most significant of these is, of course, the Digital Rights Ireland case in which we act for the Plaintiff. But today saw another assertion of the privacy rights of the individual, with […]
PIP scandal: Terms of Government care package
The HSE has circulated a letter to GPs around the country informing them of the State’s scheme to pay for women who require surgery to remove PIP implants to have them removed. HSE Letter to GPs Please see below for a copy of this letter. We’ve indications that not all GPs may have received it yet so, if you intend discussing it with your doctor, we suggest you print the HSE’s letter out and take it with you. PIP Breast Implant HSE […]
Freedom of Information: The World of Hurt
Gavin Sheridan has an excellent essay in today’s Sunday Independent, debunking all the arguments advanced for our State’s insistence on charging an upfront fee for making a Freedom of Information request. You should hurry away and read it. Consider this post a footnote to Gavin’s piece. I wanted to write a little bit about the arguments that aren’t advanced to justify our fees regime. I wanted to give an explanation for how the state apparatus came to be wedded to […]
Digital Rights Ireland: ECJ Judgment striking down Data Retention
The ECJ judgement on Digital Rights Ireland’s challenge to the EU’s data retention regime.
Law Society submissions on Tobacco Plain Packaging to the Oireachtas Health Committee
Vice Chair: We are considering the heads of the Bill dealing with tobacco plain packaging. As members are aware, the general scheme of the Public Health (Standardised Packaging of Tobacco) Bill 2013 was referred to the joint committee for consideration shortly before Christmas. We will now hear from witnesses from the Law Society of Ireland regarding their views on the proposed legislation in this regard. I welcome Mr. Ken Murphy, director general, and Mr. John P. Shaw, president of the […]