The State is objecting to a bid by Gerry “The Monk” Hutch to be awarded his estimated €400,000 legal costs.
Sean Gillane SC for the prosecution, said the application by Hutch, 60, who was acquitted last month of the murder of David Byrne in Dublin’s Regency Hotel, is being opposed.
However the Special Criminal Court heard that neither the defence nor the prosecution were in a position to deal with the matter yesterday. Ms Justice Tara Burns therefore put it back to Friday.
Read more: Gerry Hutch made toasties and fried spuds for fellow inmates in prison
Murder accuseds usually have their fees paid by the State but Mr Hutch never made an application for legal aid.
That means he had to come to his own arrangement when he was extradited from Spain to Ireland in September 2021 and brought to court to be charged with the murder of Byrne, 34, at the Regency Airport Hotel.
Nor did Hutch – who consistently denied the February 2016 murder of Byrne – apply for legal aid at any stage in the almost 13 months between being charged and the trial starting in mid-October last year.
His legal team will have sent him a so-called Section 150 letter, informing him of the expected costs in the case but that figure is known only to them and him. However, sources have also told us that the convention is that lawyers defending a client at the Special Criminal Court are entitled to the same fees given to barristers at the Central Criminal Court.
That includes a €10,000 down payment, or brief fee, to senior counsel as well as a payment of around €4,000 for every day – which is more than €200,000 alone.
But that does not include solicitors’ fees, including the mountain of work and research they had to carry out before the trial. Sources said that included preparing legal defences and also challenges against State evidence such as the use of recordings from a bug planted in witness Jonathan Dowdall’s jeep by members of the Garda National Surveillance Unit.
It also included a full dive into 44-year-old convicted criminal Jonathan Dowdall’s history, such as how many times he met IRA killer Pearse McAuley in prison.
Dowdall claimed he only visited him a few times but the defence was able to produce logs that showed he went into Roscommon’s Castlerea Prison to see him 14 times.
If Hutch is awarded costs, his legal team would then send their bill to the DPP. If that office thought the bill was too high, and could not agree a reduced figure, it could refer it for assessment by an independent adjudicator.
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