Health Minister Stephen Donnelly is being criticised for suggesting lawyers will be licking their lips at the prospect of suing the State on behalf of people impacted by the cyber attack on the health service.
In a statement, Law Society director general Mary Keane, said her organisation is deeply disappointed by the ministers comments which they see as offensive and disrespectful to over 12,000 solicitors who work tirelessly to protect and serve their clients every day.
This blatant attempt to insult the integrity of an entire profession that exists to provide access to justice for all citizens is unacceptable, extremely damaging and, to use Mr Donnellys words, distasteful, Ms Keane said.
The comments made on national radio can only be seen as an effort to deflect the narrative away from the challenges the Minister is currently facing. We urge Mr Donnelly to issue an apology to all solicitors in Ireland for this inaccurate depiction of the profession, which is in fact grounded in values of integrity, respect and trust, she added.
The Law Society statement followed Mr Donnelly attacking legal firms for advertising their services to people who may have their private information published online by hackers.
If there are cases to be taken, then people have a right to take those cases but certainly I find it – when we are in the middle of trying to get urgent healthcare services back up and running for sick patients – I certainly find it very distasteful that any law firm would be putting stuff up on their websites to that end, he said.
I find it equally distasteful mind you, that some of them have done the same on the vaccine programme as well but unfortunately, it does seem to be a facet of at least a small part of the country that we live in, Mr Donnelly added.
Meanwhile, Justice Minister Heather Humphreys has been forced to defend her reaction to the on-going fall-out from the biggest cyber attack the country has ever experienced.
Ms Humphreys did not make any public comment or appearance until five days after the countrys health service was brought to standstill by international criminals.
While the minister has not held a press conference on the attack, she did attend an event in her Monaghan constituency to announce the return of the Tidy Towns competition.
Asked at the event if she had been slow to react to controversy, the Justice Minister said Green Party leader Eamon Ryan had responsibility for dealing with the attack as the for the National Cyber Security Centre is part of his brief.
I have been in contact with my officials all of last weekend. I met the Garda Commissioner on a number of occasions and I have been completely working on this issue from the day it first happened, she added.
She said gardaí have been working with the FBI and CIA as part of the investigation into the attack believed to have been carried out by a criminal gang based in Russia.