A holiday company has agreed to pay €1,269 to a family over their disastrous week in Gran Canaria.
Falcon JWT Holidays is to make the payment to Gerry Furlong, Portlaoise, after a court heard how his family endured late-night building work on a swimming pool, injuries to his wife and child due to the condition of the hotel complex, late-night parties and an intruder in their fourth-floor accommodation.
There was no appearance for the company in court, but it had sent a letter to the Small Claims Registrar offering Mr Furlong the full amount of his claim. Judge David Maughan made a decree for €1,269, the maximum amount allowable in the Small Claims Court.
Mr Furlong sued the company in the Dublin Small Claims Court over "a litany" of problems during their week's holiday in Playa Del Inglés in June last year for which he paid just under €3,000 over the internet.
The family's problems began when their outgoing flight was delayed by three-and-a-half hours without notice, Mr Furlong told the court yesterday.
When they got to their hotel, they found the main swimming pool was not usable and the only other pool was very crowded.
Builders worked late at night to get the main pool ready and this continued for the first three nights of their stay. "The sound of con-saws [ for cutting concrete] went on until 2.30 in the morning," Mr Furlong said.
The area around the usable pool was slippery and Mr Furlong's young daughter slipped and cut herself. There was no first-aid kit available.
The next day, Mr Furlong's wife Anna cut her feet on glass which had been left around the pool. She needed medical treatment, including a tetanus injection. Even though the presence of the glass was brought to the attention of the hotel management, it was left there for more than an hour.
The family also had to endure the late-night parties of a group of teenage boys in two apartments next to them, despite the fact that the hotel had been advertised as family- friendly. On one night, one of those boys climbed into their apartment through a balcony window before being escorted out by Mr Furlong. "My family were absolutely terrified by that incident," he said.
The hotel moved them to another room, but by then they had had enough and asked to be flown home early. "We had no wish to stay any longer but all the hotel manager would do was offer us a free week at another time. But the cost of flights alone . . . meant it was not any kind of a deal for me."