Members of the firm write on Irish litigation, pensions and financial regulation, tax and the reasoning of courts and tribunals. Articles published by the firm appear in full below, followed by pieces published in the Irish Law Times and other journals.
Adam McCarthy · 23 October 2026
When the Personal Injuries Assessment Board opened in 2004 it brought with it a Book of Quantum, a slim guide to what injuries were worth that the courts were told to have regard to. Twenty years on the Book is gone, replaced by Guidelines written by judges, upheld by the Supreme Court and now frozen by a dispute between the judiciary and the Government over inflation. Adam McCarthy traces how the valuation of injuries has moved from a data exercise to a legal instrument, what the courts have made of it, and where the process stands today.
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Adam McCarthy · 23 October 2026
A medical negligence claim is unlike other personal injuries claims. It is decided by a test the Supreme Court set in 1989 and confirmed in 2020, it cannot be started without an expert report, it bypasses the Injuries Resolution Board, and it runs against a two year clock that starts on the date of knowledge rather than the date of treatment. Adam McCarthy explains what has to be proved, the time limits, the steps before proceedings issue, the course of the proceedings themselves, and how costs are dealt with, including the statutory prohibition on fees calculated as a percentage of damages.
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Adam McCarthy · 19 October 2026
Inheriting a family home with a brother or sister becomes difficult when one wants to sell, one wants to keep it and one is already living there. A refusal to cooperate does not necessarily prevent a sale. This article explains the difference between a house still in the estate and one already transferred to the beneficiaries, the powers of personal representatives to sell, the court’s powers over co-owned property and trusts, the position of a sibling in occupation, and the practical steps worth taking before anyone issues proceedings.
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Robert Bourke and Alan Brophy · 18 October 2026
A surprising number of people die without a valid will, and the law then supplies the will they did not make. Robert Bourke and Alan Brophy explain who inherits under Part VI of the Succession Act 1965, who is entitled to extract the grant of administration, why the months between the death and the grant are the hardest part for a family, and how the home, lifetime gifts, tax and the claims of the State complicate the fixed shares. The article closes with the steps, in order, by which this office administers an intestate estate.
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Robert Bourke and Adam McCarthy · 16 October 2026
The Directive adopted in March 2026 sets minimum rules across the Union for clawing back transactions, selling a business through a pre-pack, requiring directors to file and giving creditors a committee. Its quietest chapter may matter most. By January 2029 the Irish courts will be able, at a liquidator’s request, to search the central bank account register directly, reach the registers of every other Member State through a single interconnection, and look behind companies to their beneficial owners without alerting them. Robert Bourke and Adam McCarthy set out the Directive, the tools the Irish courts already have for finding assets that have been hidden, and what the combination means for anyone tempted to play hide and seek.
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Adam McCarthy · 15 October 2026
A lis pendens can freeze the sale of a property for years for the price of a form, with no judge, no undertaking as to damages and no test of the merits. That power has been under pressure in the courts for a decade and in 2026 it met Goldstein, where the High Court held that a challenge to a receiver’s appointment cannot support a registration at all and then criticised the tactics used to stop the sale by other means. Adam McCarthy explains where the remedy comes from, what it can and cannot do, and how the proposed 28 day rule will change the calculation for anyone thinking of registering one.
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Robert Bourke · 15 October 2026
Five years of examinership judgments have turned a set of discretionary considerations into settled policy. The process is for real enterprises with real jobs, the petitioner must come to court with everything and at the right time, the court will reach foreign companies whose centre is here, it will confirm a conditional scheme only where the conditions serve the rescue and not a party, and it will not confirm a scheme whose creditor classes are wrongly drawn. Robert Bourke reviews the cases, the 2022 reforms and the new statutory duty on directors, and explains why time is of the essence for a board deciding whether to seek protection.
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Alan Brophy · 15 October 2026
The lockdowns tested commercial leases and the courts answered plainly. The rent is payable unless the lease says otherwise. Since then the rescue process for small companies, the new rates regime and a divided market have changed the landscape, while the leases themselves have not changed at all. Alan Brophy sets out the concerns landlords and tenants should have now, why a lease has to be read in real time so that its dates and triggers are not missed, and whether a rent review should be triggered or left in the hope that the other party forgets.
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Robert Bourke · 15 October 2026
The Companies Act 2014 gives shareholders who fall out a remedy, not a plan, and the remedy is litigation. Robert Bourke explains what a shareholders’ agreement settles while the parties are still on good terms, why it should be in place before the first outside investment, how key person and shareholder protection cover ensure that the estate of a shareholder who dies is paid by an insurer rather than left holding shares, and how the agreement, the insurance and the shareholders’ wills can be brought into line.
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Adam McCarthy · 15 October 2026
The High Court dismissed possession proceedings for want of jurisdiction, holding that section 3 of the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2013 is engaged where the property is the mortgagor’s principal private residence when proceedings are issued, whatever its status when the mortgage was created. The firm acted for the successful first named defendant.
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Robert Bourke · 15 October 2026
The High Court refused to enforce an English County Court judgment for a spread betting debt, holding that section 36 of the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956 is a rule of law essential to the Irish legal order and that recognition would be manifestly contrary to public policy under Article 34(1) of the Brussels I Regulation. Robert Bourke appeared as junior counsel for the successful defendant.
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Robert Bourke · 31 December 2025
How the Irish transposition of IORP II and the statutory instruments that followed it have reshaped scheme consolidation, bulk and overseas transfers, and the position of small self-administered arrangements and non-standard PRSAs.
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