The State's growing legal bill for dealing with deafness claims by soldiers is "like a juggernaut careering down a hill with no brakes and preparing to run over the ordinary taxpayer", the Minister for Defence has said. "Notwithstanding whatever difficulties may be in the way, I intend to install a new set of hydraulic brakes," Mr Smith said.
The State is facing a bill of over £50 million in fees from solicitors acting for the soldiers and former soldiers who are claiming hearing damage as a result of their jobs.
Mr Smith said he would "launch a full-scale investigation" into the fees and would raise the matter at Cabinet this week. He would try to "bring in a single and lower fee for these cases".
The Law Society, which represents solicitors, has blamed the State for the huge legal bills. The director-general of the society, Mr Ken Murphy, said the fees were a result of the way the State had handled the claims. It was "consistently denying liability up to the door of the court and then conceding ". If the cases had been conceded earlier in the process, costs would have been reduced. "I believe that the way to deal with this is not to deny liability," he said.
A system already existed to monitor legal fees. "There are very effective brakes on legal fees and they can be applied by any party. If the Minister wants a system of expert independent assessment and, if necessary, reduction of legal costs, he can refer it to the Taxing Master."
Mr Murphy contrasted the public's attitude to the soldiers with the sympathy for women infected with hepatitis C. "The feeling is that because the victims are men they are receiving less public sympathy."
About 10,000 former or serving Defence Forces personnel are taking or have settled claims against the State for damaged hearing. The average plaintiff's solicitors' cost is £5,300. The State, therefore, is facing a bill of about £53 million from plaintiffs' legal costs.
The number of claims against the State is increasing by 100 a week. The amount of money going to solicitor firms from the claims is higher than had previously been reported. As well as the "party-to-party" costs - the plaintiff's solicitors costs covered by the courts' awarding of costs - firms are also charging "solicitor-to-client" fees, extra payments which the client must make. The fee would normally be between £1,500 and £2,500. The cases are almost all being brought on a no-win-no-fee basis. It is against the law for a solicitor firm to charge a solicitor-client fee which is a percentage of any award won.
Four solicitor firms are known to be handling about 3,000 of the 10,000 cases: Ferry's, Dublin; Leahy and O'Sullivan, Limerick; Flynn and English, Cork; and P.V. Boland, Newbridge, Co Kildare.