A round-up to today's other court stories in brief
HSA on site month before electrocution
A jury has heard that the construction site on which a worker was electrocuted had been visited by the Health and Safety Authority the previous month and had been deemed safe for work to continue.
Michael O'Connell was electrocuted while working for Ascon Ltd on the southeastern motorway at Sandyford, Dublin, after an excavator he was using came in contact with overhead wires.
Ascon, Kill, Co Kildare, and Rps Mcos Ltd, Blessington House, Tallaght, Dublin, site designers and project supervisors, have pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to breaches of health and safety that resulted in the injury to Mr O'Connell.
HSA inspector Aisling Davis told Paul Greene, prosecuting, that she had received a complaint in relation to perimeter fencing for the site at a housing estate in Sandyford. She met John Lardiner, Ascon's safety officer, and the gap in the fencing was dealt with immediately.
She carried out a routine inspection on the 12km site and outlined nine recommendations in relation to site safety which she said were to be acted on immediately.
One of her concerns was that there should be a constant check to ensure that bunting, which marked out an exclusion zone surrounding overhead wires, was checked.
The trial continues before Judge Joseph Matthews and the jury.
Roma loses case against deportation
A man who claimed he had been persecuted in his country because of his ethnicity and religion has lost a High Court bid to overturn a decision by the Minister for Justice to deport him.
Samuila Caldaras (44), a member of the Roma community, applied for asylum when he arrived in Ireland in January 2003 and was refused refugee status in September 2003.
Michael McDowell signed an order for his deportation on May 5th, 2005. Mr Caldaras initiated judicial review proceedings in June 2005 aimed at quashing the Minister's order.
Mr Caldaras claimed he feared persecution in Romania because of his ethnicity and religion and said he and other family members had been mistreated by the local police in his home town.
Liability admitted for boy's injuries
The Southern Health Board has conceded liability in the case of a young boy who is blind, severely brain-damaged, doubly incontinent and requires 24- hour care after undergoing a procedure at a Cork hospital.
It is claimed the procedure which took place when Darragh Crowley was aged two related to the revision of a shunt/tube which had been inserted two years earlier to deal with a condition of his skull.
Through his mother Hannah Crowley, a nurse, Millstreet, Co Cork, Darragh sued the Southern Health Board and six other medical staff who were at the Cork University Hospital at the time.
After talks yesterday, Denis McCullough SC, for the SHB, told the judge issues between the defendants had been settled and, with the consent of the plaintiff, the action against the other six defendants could be struck out and the case would proceed against the SHB only.
He said the SHB admitted liability and the case would continue only as an assessment of damages.