A date has been fixed next month for an appeal by suspended solicitor Declan O’Callaghan over findings of professional misconduct in connection with his handling of a land deal in Co Mayo.
On Thursday, the president of the High Court, Mr Justice David Barniville, set a provisional hearing date of July 23rd for the appeal.
Barrister Michael Mullooly, for Mr O’Callaghan, said he expected it to run for two days and Mr O’Callaghan would be among his side’s witnesses.
Barrister Ruadhán Ó Ciaráin, for Nirvanna, the concrete products manufacturer that brought the complaint against Mr O’Callaghan over the 2007 land deal to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, said it is expected to call two witnesses at most.
Last month, Mr Justice Barniville rejected a challenge by Mr O’Callaghan over the procedures adopted by the tribunal in reaching its findings last year of professional misconduct over the 2007 deal.
On Friday, he made an order requiring Mr O’Callaghan to pay Nirvanna’s costs in opposing that application.
The rejection of Mr O’Callaghan’s judicial review-type challenge cleared the way for the hearing of his full appeal. If he loses that appeal, the High Court will then consider whether or not to grant an application by the Law Society to strike him off.
The society has agreed with the tribunal recommendation that Mr O’Callaghan be struck off, but the final decision on whether or not to grant a strike-off order must be made by the High Court president.
The three-member tribunal last summer found Mr O’Callaghan guilty of four counts of professional misconduct over his handling of the 2007 land deal involving Nirvanna, a company of Co Mayo businessman Tom Fleming.
[ Declan O’Callaghan: No end in sight as saga of suspended solicitor continuesOpens in new window ]
Now aged 80, Mr Fleming claimed Nirvanna never received €250,000 for selling the land to a now-deceased businessman. Mr O’Callaghan denied the sum was owed, and disputed the transaction was for “sale” of the lands.
The tribunal upheld the Nirvanna complaint, finding professional misconduct on grounds Mr O’Callaghan breached his duty of care to the company, provided inadequate professional services, and purported to act for vendor and purchaser in a transaction where there was “a clear conflict of interest”.
In recommending strike-off, it had regard to two findings of professional misconduct previously made by it in 1990 and 2019 against Mr O’Callaghan.
He has been suspended as a solicitor since 2018 arising from a separate Law Society investigation into matters at his now-defunct practice Kilrane O’Callaghan & Co, which was based in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon.
The suspension was imposed pending a tribunal hearing of the society’s application for an inquiry into matters arising from its investigation.
Concerns raised in an independent solicitor’s report for that investigation included that Mr O’Callaghan withdrew substantial fees from the estate of a bereaved child.
