{"id":409452,"date":"2026-01-13T03:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T03:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/409452\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T03:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T03:50:12","slug":"judge-reduces-e50000-damages-award-by-80-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/409452\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge reduces \u20ac50,000 damages award by 80% \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cyclists<\/a> had become a nightmare in Dublin, a judge stated today as he reduced a \u20ac50,000 damages award by 80 per cent to a cyclist who suffered a brain injury when he and a motorbike collided.<\/p>\n

Judge James O\u2019Donohoe decided that the injured cyclist was mainly responsible for the accident that had taken place in darkness at 6 o\u2019clock on a September morning in 2020 and in which he had suffered 12 other soft-tissue injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never know with cyclists what they are going to do or anticipate what they are going to do,\u201d Judge O\u2019Donohoe said in the Circuit Civil Court<\/a>. \u201cCyclists have become a nightmare in Dublin<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he was entitled, as someone who drives cars in the city, to take judicial notice of his own experiences as a motorist.<\/p>\n

Barrister Emmet Carty, representing 50-year-old construction worker and injured cyclist Ioan Giurgila, of Hibernian Way, North Strand, Dublin, told Judge O\u2019Donohoe his client had little detailed memory of the collision but the court had the benefit of engineering and dash-cam evidence of how it had occurred.<\/p>\n

Mr Carty, who appeared with Kent Carty Solicitors for Mr Giurgila, said motorbike rider defendant Mark Finnegan\u2019s own dash-cam video revealed evidence of negligence on his part and agreed with Judge O\u2019Donohoe it showed contributory blame on the part of Mr Giurgila.<\/p>\n

When cross-examined by barrister Sharbee Morrin, who appeared with Hayes McGrath Solicitors for Mr Finnegan of Forest Park, Swords, Co Dublin, and AXA Insurance, Mr Giurgila conceded that he had not been wearing a helmet or high-vis safety vest, had no lights on his bike and had not given any signal of his intention of turning right out of a bus and cycle lane into the path of follow-on traffic.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Cyclists are just lumped in with general traffic\u2019: Change is coming for Dublin\u2019s dangerous junctionsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Judge O\u2019Donohoe reduced his \u20ac50,000 award for the brain injury to \u20ac10,000, along with 80 per cent reductions relating to \u201cuplift\u201d awards for soft-tissue injuries, resulting in a total award of \u20ac17,628 to Mr Giurgila and Circuit Court costs.<\/p>\n

The judge said he was taking into consideration the fact that Mr Finnegan had obviously seen Mr Giurgila and had beeped his horn after having seen him behave erratically in the joint bus-cycle lane without having reduced his speed to a level where he might have been able to avoid a collision.<\/p>\n

In response, Ciar\u00e1n Cannon, president of Cycling Ireland, said the judge\u2019s comments were \u201cdeeply disappointing\u201d and called for them to be immediately withdrawn.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is deeply disturbing and disappointing to hear a member of the judiciary speak about cyclists in such a disparaging and dismissive way,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cCyclists are among the most vulnerable people on our roads, simply trying to get home safely in an environment that is often hostile and dangerous.<\/p>\n

The Irish Cycling Campaign said it was deeply concerned by the judge\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cSweeping statements that portray people who cycle as a \u2018nightmare\u2019 are inappropriate and risk reinforcing dangerous attitudes toward a group of road users who are among the most vulnerable on our roads,\u201d it said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case should not be used to generalise about cycling in Dublin or elsewhere. The real and ongoing safety crisis on our roads is reflected in rising fatalities and serious injuries, overwhelmingly linked to motor traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cyclists had become a nightmare in Dublin, a judge stated today as he reduced a \u20ac50,000 damages award…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,216841,784,31403,10587,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-409452","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-courts-service","11":"tag-cycling","12":"tag-dublin","13":"tag-road-safety","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}