The legal fees earned by barristers and solicitors in article 40 habeas corpus applications for the release of clients whose solicitors refused to represent them have been revealed in the High Court.The fees ran to almost €30,000 in one case and to just under €20,000 in another, the court was told. These cases involved court appearances of three to five hours in lead cases by senior counsel, junior barristers and solicitors. A series of these applications has been made in recent weeks as a result of a strike by criminal legal aid solicitors over changes to how they are paid. This has left some accused people before the courts without representation.In three article 40 applications before Judge Garrett Simons, that ran over most of two days and concentrated on legal argument and submissions, senior counsel Colman FitzGerald and barrister Kevin McCrave appeared.Senior counsel Michael O’Higgins led in two other cases, with barrister Orla Doolin assisting him in one and Alexander Langan MacDonnell assisting him in the other.In one of FitzGerald’s cases, the court heard, he was due €3,000 for an ex-parte brief fee; €2,750 for submissions; €7,500 for the hearing and another €3,000 as a refresher, a total of €16,250. A refresher fee is charged where a hearing overruns allotted time. The total does not include VAT.McCrave’s fees were said to be €1,750 for an ex-parte brief; €1,450 for submissions; €5,100 for the hearing and €1,750 refresher fee, totalling €10,565 excluding VAT. Fees for solicitors in this case were totalled at between €16,000 and €19,000.Similar legal costs applied in each of five cases heard by Simons over the two days. Legal teams had, however, spent hours on research, separate to their time in court.FitzGerald was the only barrister who, on instructions from his solicitor, openly detailed other legal expenses to the court.[ Law society proposed compromises aimed at resolving dispute over criminal legal aid paymentsOpens in new window ]He said his solicitor had told him that in all of his 27 years in practice he had never had such a request made in an article 40 proceeding and it had, in his opinion, placed him in an invidious position as it was almost impossible to present a proper bill of costs for work in progress.O’Higgins told the judge he had written a letter to his solicitor setting out fees that were paid in two recent cases, and also contrasting them with the case before the court together with some assessments.Simons had initially directed that the court be provided with estimated legal costs in each case and had asked State authorities to provide comparison costs for District Court appearances and those applying to the High Court.Senior counsel Sunniva McDonagh, who appeared for the Director of Public Prosecutions with barrister Kieran Kelly, told the court the director had a fee scale for bail applications and for habeas corpus cases, which she would be handing in.The issue of legal costs had initially been raised by Judge Michael Twomey in each of several cases in which he refused to open article 40 inquiries into the alleged unlawful detention of accused, partly on the basis that these had been brought about by solicitors who had refused to represent their clients.In the case of a man accused of possession of a handgun and ammunition, Twomey said he had to decide whether article 40 was the appropriate remedy in seeking bail where it had been refused or not applied for because of the absence of a solicitor.He said a solicitor who had refused to represent a man on a Monday in the District Court, where fees would amount to hundreds of euro, had turned up the following day in the article 40 application on his behalf in the High Court, where fees could run into the thousands. He said solicitors were entitled to appear for or refuse to appear for accused.