Criminal defence solicitor Cahir O’Higgins, already in prison for other offences, has been sentenced to a further 27 months dating from October 21st this year for theft and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
O’Higgins was due to be released at the end of September 2025 on his earlier conviction for assault and harassment, on the basis of good behaviour. The new sentence will see him stay in jail up to April 2026, or an extra six months, presuming good behaviour.
O’Higgins, of Cahir O’Higgins and Company, Kingsbride House, Parkgate Street, Dublin, was once one of the highest-earning practitioners in the criminal legal aid scheme. He is the son of former Fine Gael TDs Michael J O’Higgins and Brigid Hogan-O’Higgins, and nephew of the former chief justice Tom O’Higgins.
He pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of assault causing harm to fellow solicitor Stephen O’Mahony and to one count of harassing him between June 25th, 2020 and February 11th, 2021.
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Earlier this month he was found guilty by a jury of the theft of €400 in July 2016 and four counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice in December 2017. The charges arose from the theft of money from a Spanish man facing a criminal damage charge who he represented at a sitting of Dublin District Court on July 30th, 2016.
Addressing a sentencing hearing in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on Monday, defence counsel Michael O’Higgins SC – who is not a relation – said the “moment of madness” when O’Higgins stole the money was “like pulling a thread” and it “brought everything you can conceivably think of down to nothing”.
The court was told O’Higgins had suffered from stress and burnout and Judge Martin Nolan was given a “detailed psychological report” to consider.
Mr O’Higgins said his client might be seen as having had a more “gilded existence” than the often underprivileged people who appeared before the courts, but “there were very real and difficult circumstances when growing up”.
Counsel said his client had been an inpatient at the St John of God psychiatric hospital in Dublin and, as a letter from his brother to the court made clear, had been suffering “multiple difficulties” including the collapse of his marriage and the “shame and embarrassment” associated with his crimes.
[ Cahir O’Higgins: Rise and fall of solicitor from well-known political familyOpens in new window ]
Mr O’Higgins submitted letters of support from neighbours and charities with which his client was associated, including one from Fr Peter McVerry of the McVerry Trust.
A letter from his ex-partner, counsel said, “pulled no punches” and referred to the damage inflicted on the family, but also outlined how Cahir O’Higgins was reliable and caring as a father.
The judge said attempting to pervert the course of justice was a serious matter, as was a solicitor stealing from a client.
Referring to the detailed report, he said O’Higgins had come from a very good family and had “very competent and intelligent parents” but there had been “difficulties” and it appeared members of O’Higgins’s family also had difficulties and O’Higgins had been trying to care for his siblings.
“Every family has its challenges,” he said. The assault and the theft could be seen as “the same crisis moving slowly towards an ultimate conclusion”.
After sentence was delivered, O’Higgins, wearing a black pullover, grey cotton pants and white sneakers, asked the judge for permission to speak. He said he wanted to apologise to everybody impacted by what he had done. “Nothing in my background has been negative,” he said. “I shouldn’t get sympathy about that.”
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