MARTIN WADES INTO ROW OVER ‘SWING FALL’ TD
Fianna Fáil leader says of lawsuit by FG TD who fell off hotel swing: ‘I could never understand people claiming left, right and centre’
FIANNA Fáil leader Micheál Martin yesterday waded into the growing row over the TD who is suing a hotel after falling off a swing.
Mr Martin said he didn’t know the specifics of the case being brought by Fine Gael TD Maria Bailey, but it seemed to ‘fly in the face of everything we are trying to do to bring insurance costs down’.
Dún Laoghaire TD Ms Bailey is suing Dublin’s Dean Hotel, claiming she sustained injuries – including to her head, back and hip – when she fell from a swing
inside the Harcourt Street hotel in 2015. Mr Martin said: ‘I could never understand people claiming left, right and centre, when you go through the ordinary things of life, if I am honest about it.
‘When we were young kids in the inner city of Cork, fellas broke ankles and hands… and no one ever thought of lodging a claim against anybody. And I think there is a limit to what people should be doing. I think this does impact on the claims culture.’
The Fianna Fáil leader said people would ask: ‘Who are they in Leinster House to be complaining about a claims culture if they are doing it themselves?’
His comments follow criticism from Senator and former justice minister Michael McDowell, who suggested such claims were incompatible with the Government’s repeated promises to tackle the claims culture.
He said: ‘It also occurs to me that if the Government is serious about driving down the claims culture, we cannot stand idly by when adults with two objects, one in each hand, lose their seat and fall off a swing, and then claim there should have been a supervisor looking after them, especially
‘There has been little progress made’
when it comes from somebody who has so much public influence and clear influence over Government policy in these matters.’
Despite being warned by the Seanad Cathaoirleach to tread carefully as the issue could be ‘sub judice’, Mr McDowell said he would not comment on the merits of the case but continued: ‘It would appear that 55 years after Belfast City Council unlocked the swings on Sundays, the proposition is being put in court that there should be supervisors for swings when adults are using them and that it is a matter of civil liability if there are not.
‘It does occur to me that we live in a strange world where civil liability can exist in such circumstances. Who knows? Maybe we are only hearing a portion of the evidence,’ he said.
It has been widely reported in recent days that, in Circuit Civil Court proceedings, Ms Bailey has accused the hotel of negligence, as the swing was allegedly not supervised at the time of the incident in 2015, the year before she became a Fine Gael TD. The hotel denies any liability. According to one report, the hotel alleges – in defence papers filed – that the mother-of-two had failed to use ‘the swing in a proper manner and held items in both hands, restricting her ability to balance, and preventing her from holding rope grips properly’.
Mr Martin said yesterday that although he didn’t know the details of the case, he believed there was an ‘extraordinary reaction’ at a time ‘when we are desperately trying to get insurance costs down’.
‘When there has been a significant degree of inaction on the numerous reports that have emerged in terms of getting claims down, having data in terms of what the insurance companies are doing and so on, there has been little progress made,’ he said.
He warned that the case came at a time when businesses are warning they may face closure ‘because they can’t get reasonable insurance at a reasonable cost, and sometimes are limited to one insurer’.
The Irish Daily Mail made several attempts to contact Ms Bailey last night but she did not respond.
However, Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty defended her party colleague, saying: ‘Every individual has a right to take a case.’
Ms Doherty said she wouldn’t comment on any individual case but that it was the Government’s job to ‘balance the rights of individuals’ access to courts but also making sure, when they go to court, they’re sensible claims’.
That is why Cabinet agreed this week to an amendment to the long-awaited Judicial Council Bill to set up the Personal Injuries Commission’. She said ministers are ‘incredibly serious’ about this issue. ‘We don’t want to stop anybody from going to court and making a claim, if they feel they have a right to do so. But what we absolutely cannot tolerate is exorbitant claims [awards] being given to people off the back of previous records of exorbitant claims that are putting people out of business. We can’t have that.’
This week Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan partly blamed insurance firms for the soaring cost of premiums, telling the Mail that insurers were ‘not being fair or reasonable with the people of Ireland’.
‘Are they serious about claims’