{"id":43171,"date":"2025-09-25T19:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T19:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/43171\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T19:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T19:03:08","slug":"former-rehab-chief-angela-kerins-submits-legal-bills-of-e2-1m-to-oireachtas-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/43171\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Rehab chief Angela Kerins submits legal bills of \u20ac2.1m to Oireachtas \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Rehab Group chief executive Angela Kerins has submitted \u20ac2.1 million in legal costs arising from court action she took against the Houses of the Oireachtas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The D\u00e1il Public Accounts Committee<\/a> (PAC) was told on Thursday that the bills were now undergoing a legal cost adjudication process.<\/p>\n

The committee heard the bills related to the first module of legal action taken by Ms Kerins arising from an appearance before the PAC in 2014. <\/p>\n

Ms Kerins at the time was invited to the committee amid controversy over her \u20ac240,000 salary with Rehab, the group that assists people with disabilities.<\/p>\n

In her long-running court case, Ms Kerins claimed that over seven hours the committee subjected her to \u201cwitch hunt\u201d style questioning and that she was so overwhelmed by what happened that she later attempted to take her life and could not attend a follow-up hearing that April. She resigned from her private sector role that month. <\/p>\n

In 2019, the Supreme Court<\/a> ruled on the first module of her action and found the committee acted unlawfully as a whole by straying significantly outside its remit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In June 2024, the Supreme Court found a claim for damages brought by Ms Kerins \u201ccannot be maintained\u201d<\/a> on foot of constitutional provisions which confer a privilege on parliamentary utterances.<\/p>\n

The Clerk of the D\u00e1il, Peter Finnegan, who is also secretary general of the Houses of the Oireachtas Service, on Thursday told the PAC there had been three sets of legal proceedings overall. He said Ms Kerins was awarded her full costs in the original High Court<\/a> case. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have in a bill from Ms Kerins, from her legal team, for that and that is being worked through by a legal cost accountant on our behalf. The amount (involved) is \u20ac2.1 million and that is for her solicitors\u2019 fees and barristers\u2019 fees.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Finnegan told Independent TD Catherine Connolly<\/a> there were High Court and Supreme Court hearings in relation to a second module of proceedings, but Ms Kerins had not yet submitted legal bills in relation to these.<\/p>\n

Legal costs for the Oireachtas were \u20ac775,000.<\/p>\n

Separately, Mr Finnegan said public anger over the more than \u20ac300,000 cost of building a bike shed at Leinster House was \u201cfully justified, 110 per cent\u201d. He said the controversy caused reputational damage to members and the Houses of the Oireachtas. <\/p>\n

Mr Finnegan said the Office of Public Works<\/a> (OPW) owned the Leinster House building and the Oireachtas did not have the ability to spend money on capital projects. <\/p>\n

He said lessons had been learned over the bike shed controversy and \u201ceverything is now heavily scrutinised\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Finnegan also that during his time as secretary general in the Houses of the Oireachtas, security had emerged as a significant issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast Wednesday, business resumed in the Houses, and barriers were erected and roads closed around the Leinster House complex,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a sad reflection of the level of threat that has emerged over the last number of years that such measures are now required and, as a society, we need to reflect on this.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said in 2023, following a significant number of security and safety incidents involving members and their staff, it was necessary to implement a security scheme for members.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Security Requirements Allowance is a contribution \u2013 now at a much higher level \u2013 towards the installation costs of personal safety measures of a member and their staff, the member\u2019s office or the member\u2019s home,\u201d he said. \u201cTake up is low and we need to work with members to determine why that is the case.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Rehab Group chief executive Angela Kerins has submitted \u20ac2.1 million in legal costs arising from court action…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,3656,15049,73,61,60,32235,12636,12467,8779],"class_list":["post-43171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-catherine-connolly","tag-dail-eireann","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-office-of-public-works","tag-oireachtas","tag-public-accounts-committee","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}