It has cost the State an estimated €220,000 in lawyers’ fees from the collapsed murder trial of Patrick Hutch.
Last month the 26-year-old walked free from the Special Criminal Court in Dublin after charges against him over the killing of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in February 2016 were dropped.
The case was before the judge for more than a year but had been halted for an inquiry to be carried out into the tragic death of senior investigating garda, Det Supt Colm Fox.
There were repeated adjournments since February last year when notes “authored by” the late officer were handed in to court. In response to a Freedom of Information request, the DPP has confirmed it paid two counsel €111,674 to prosecute Hutch on behalf of the State.
Lawyer Sean Gillane led the two- member barrister team for the DPP. It doesn’t identify who acted for the office but does confirm one received €67,996 in fees with a colleague pocketing €43,677.
They were assisted by a salaried solicitor from the Chief State Solicitor’s Office.
Defence lawyers are paid the same rate as prosecuting lawyers by the State through the Criminal Legal Aid scheme resulting in a doubling of the €110,674 cost to pay for barristers in the case.
The bill for the defence will be even higher as the payments to the solicitor for Hutch would also be funded from the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme.
Along with the estimated €220,000 lawyer bill, the State has also spent large amounts on Garda man-hours investigating the murder of Mr Byrne.
The killing sparked a murderous feud between the Kinahan-Hutch gangs and the Garda spend on overtime in the Dublin Metropolitan Regional North Central area alone since the start of 2016 in seeking to minimise the murder rate from the feud totals €36million.
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Last year, the overtime bill for the area totalled €12.39million.
In separate figures, the DPP has confirmed payments to barristers to prosecute cases in the criminal courts last year totalled €17.39million – an increase of €1million on 2017.
The top paid senior counsel was paid €524,649 with four others receiving payments over €300,000.
And 10 other unnamed senior counsel received fees between €200,000 and €300,000 with eight junior counsel receiving between €200,000 and €300,000.
