A recent Lawyers Against Homelessness (LAH) event raised a whopping €27,000 for Brother Kevin Crowley and the work of the Capuchin friars at Bow Street in Dublin 7.

This is the most money raised at any one event to date, and brings the total funds raised by LAH to €162,000 over seven separate CPD events.

Dublin's poor

The 5 December fundraiser at the Capuchin Day Centre heard from Brother Kevin himself about the work of the Franciscans in feeding and providing for Dublin’s poor.

Brother Kevin was presented with a gift by event co-ordinator, barrister Constance Cassidy.

Other speakers included ‘Father of the Bar’ Ronnie Robins SC, Mr Justice Kevin Cross, John O’Donnell SC, Duncan Inverarity (A&L Goodbody), Joanne Redmond (Facebook’s associate general counsel in Ireland) and, finally, Edward Walsh SC, who spoke about personal injuries’ claims.

He focused on the 2003 formation of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board as a “significant intervention by the State into the settlement of personal injuries disputes between private parties, disputes which otherwise would simply be fought out in the courts”.

Complexity

Despite the “noble motivation” of the origination of the Injuries Board, he said, it was perhaps ironic that the legislation was now contained in some three separate acts, leading to increased complexity.

Even the most experienced legal adviser could encounter difficulties in understanding the full nature and extent of the requirements to process litigation involving personal injuries through the Personal Injuries Assessment Board framework, he commented.

'Minefield'

Despite the fact that the legislation had been in effect for more than 15 years, issues continued to arise with increasing frequency and had created a “minefield” that needed to be carefully traversed “in order for a claimant to pursue the claimant’s entitlement to compensation where a personal injury has been caused due to a fault of a respondent”.

Lawyer-free zone

Mr Walsh concluded: “To suggest we let the practice and procedures of the Injuries Board operate as a lawyer-free zone would seem unsustainable.”

The next LAH event is scheduled for 26 March 2020.