The Irish Sun revealed how the lawyer, who told the court someone else put the drugs in his wallet at a bash, celebrated having his case for possession of cocaine struck out in 2018 by hitting the town.
Now it has emerged McCarthy has been named as one of the top ten earning solicitors involved with the criminal legal aid scheme in each of the last three years.
In total, he received €1,607,671.23 between 2020 and 2022.
McCarthy was paid €414,203.85 for criminal legal aid work in 2020, while he received an additional €591,304.65 in 2021. Last year the solicitor got a whopping €602,162.73 in legal aid fees.
The lawyer was listed the sixth top-earning legal aid solicitor in 2020, before reaching third place in 2021 and fourth place in 2022.
The figures emerged in the answer to a parliamentary question put to Justice Minister Simon Harris by Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy.
Ms Murphy, the co-founder of the Social Democrats, asked the Minister to provide a breakdown of the amount of criminal legal aid that has been paid out to solicitors.
The party’s spokesperson on Justice also requested the amount paid to each of the top ten recipients in fees in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Read more
https://www.thesun.ie/news/10670528/cocaine-solicitor-legal-aid-top-earners-escape-conviction/
Sean Hocking
Source link
