{"id":300157,"date":"2026-01-23T21:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T21:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/300157\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T21:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T21:32:07","slug":"high-court-censures-roscommon-solicitor-following-conflict-of-interest-finding-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/300157\/","title":{"rendered":"High Court censures Roscommon solicitor following conflict of interest finding \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Suspended Roscommon<\/a> solicitor Declan O\u2019Callaghan has been formally censured at the High Court<\/a> on foot of a Law Society<\/a> application over a finding of misconduct arising out of a 2006 Mayo land deal.<\/p>\n

Last November, Mr O\u2019Callaghan successfully appealed<\/a> three allegations of misconduct relating to the same transaction. The High Court upheld one count of misconduct.<\/p>\n

A disciplinary tribunal had previously decided it wanted Mr O\u2019Callaghan struck off based on its findings.<\/p>\n

The case related to the solicitor\u2019s handling of a land transfer for which the vendor claimed it was owed \u20ac250,000.<\/p>\n

While the court was \u201cdeeply unimpressed\u201d with Mr O\u2019Callaghan\u2019s conduct representing both sides of the sale, Mr Justice M\u00edche\u00e1l O\u2019Higgins did not find the solicitor to be guilty of dishonesty.<\/p>\n

The solicitors\u2019 tribunal had upheld the complaints against Mr O\u2019Callaghan made in 2010 by Mayo company Nirvanna Property Holdings Ltd, run by businessman Tom Fleming. In July 2025 the tribunal recommended that Mr O\u2019Callaghan be struck off the roll of solicitors.<\/p>\n

This was put on hold pending the outcome of the appeal to the High Court.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Callaghan took his appeal against Nirvanna Property Holdings Ltd, which was represented by barrister Ruadh\u00e1n \u00d3 Ciar\u00e1in, instructed by P\u00e1draig Langsch solicitor. The Law Society named as a notice party in the proceedings.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Callaghan appealed the tribunal\u2019s findings that he acted for both the vendor and the purchaser in a conflict of interest, that he provided inadequate professional services and that he continued to act for the purchaser, the late businessman Fred Preston.<\/p>\n

In November last year, Mr Justice O\u2019Higgins upheld one ground against Mr O\u2019Callaghan relating to the conflict of interest complaint.<\/p>\n

Mr Justice O\u2019Higgins said any solicitor acting for both parties \u201cdoes so at his peril\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not remotely surprising that the appellant, by choosing to act for both sides in the one transaction on the facts of this case, gave rise not just to the risk but the actuality that the solicitors\u2019 profession would be brought into disrepute,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision to act for both sides in the circumstances, coupled with the failure to ensure the respondent was separately advised, represented a serious falling short of the standards expected of solicitors,\u201d said the judge.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Callaghan had accepted his firm acted for both sides in the transfer but strenuously denied any impropriety.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Callaghan submitted that the land deal had to adhere to security requirements demanded by Bank of Ireland for a loan for Western Concrete, which was a joint venture between Mr Fleming and Mr Preston. Mr O\u2019Callaghan said there had been no question of \u20ac250,000 being paid to Nirvanna for the transfer and that the figure referred to the valuation of the land.<\/p>\n

Mr Justice O\u2019Higgins said Mr O\u2019Callaghan should have advised Nirvanna and Mr Fleming to get independent legal advice. <\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Callaghan has been suspended from the roll since 2018 on foot of a separate Law Society inquiry into matters at his practice.<\/p>\n

At the High Court on Friday, barrister Neasa Bird, for the Law Society, said her client wanted a \u201ccensure\u201d to be imposed on Mr O\u2019Callaghan and was not seeking any legal costs.<\/p>\n

Michael Mullooly, counsel for Mr O\u2019Callaghan, said his client has been substantively successful in winning three out of the four matters appealed. This should be reflected in any ruling on costs, he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Justice O\u2019Higgins said he would order the Law Society censure. He made no order in favour of any party regarding the costs of the appeal to the High Court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Suspended Roscommon solicitor Declan O\u2019Callaghan has been formally censured at the High Court on foot of a Law…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,10476,19,17,45669,13172],"class_list":{"0":"post-300157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-high-court","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-law-society","14":"tag-roscommon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115946556246232242","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}