{"id":372873,"date":"2026-01-16T07:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T07:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/372873\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T07:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T07:35:12","slug":"i-reject-any-stereotyping-of-cyclists-irish-prime-minister-condemns-judges-nightmare-cyclists-comments-as-labour-makes-formal-complaint-to-judicial-standards-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/372873\/","title":{"rendered":"“I reject any stereotyping of cyclists”: Irish prime minister condemns judge’s ‘nightmare cyclists’ comments, as Labour makes formal complaint to judicial standards body"},"content":{"rendered":"

A judge who reduced a cyclist’s damages by 80 per cent and branded cyclists a “nightmare in Dublin” has been referred to Ireland’s Judicial Council over his remarks.<\/p>\n

Judge\u00a0James O’Donohoe was widely criticised<\/a> for his comments at a civil court hearing over a motorcyclist’s collision with a cyclist. Ioan\u00a0Giurgila suffered a brain injury and 12 soft tissue injuries but saw his total damages claim slashed\u00a0to \u20ac17,628 and costs.<\/p>\n

>\u00a0Judge criticised for extraordinary ‘nightmare cyclists’ comments after slashing damages by 80% for Dublin rider who suffered brain injury in collision<\/a><\/p>\n

The Labour Party\u00a0has now submitted a formal complaint to the Judicial Council, the courts’ independent standards body. Ciar\u00e1n Ahern, Labour’s Transport spokesman, said O’Donohoe’s\u00a0remarks were “deeply problematic, and\u00a0exhibited a clear perception of bias against cyclists in his decision-making.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u201cCyclists have become a nightmare in Dublin\u201d is an untrue, unfair and frankly ignorant statement. The reality is actually much the opposite \u2013 being a cyclist is often a nightmare with a lack of safe, segregated cycle lanes, dangerous junctions, poor lighting, poor maintenance of existing bike lanes and record levels of bike theft among some of the many issues cyclists face in Dublin and across the country.<\/p>\n

“14 cyclists were killed on our roads in 2025 \u2013 the highest number of cyclists lives lost since 2017. Indeed, 2025 was a devastating year on our roads, seeing 190 people lose their lives. Every road death is a tragedy for the families and communities impacted.<\/p>\n

“Rather than pitting road users against each other as Judge O\u2019Donohoe has sought to do, we should be encouraging all road users to take greater care of their own road use, and to protect others.” Ahern added.<\/p>\n

Labour leader Ivana Bacik subsequently raised the issue in the\u00a0D\u00e1il (Irish Parliament), for which Taoiseach\u00a0Miche\u00e1l Martin described the judge’s comments as “wrong”.<\/p>\n

“I reject any stereotyping of cyclists or any categorisation of cyclists. I don’t want to breach any separation of powers, but I’m very clear that any general comment to the effect that it impacts negatively in terms of the perspective on cyclists is wrong. It shouldn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

“We should be very clear about the importance of cycling and facilitating cyclists and also being very careful in terms of contested space on our roads in terms of making sure that we protect cyclists.\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n

>\u00a0Driver who killed Dublin cyclist while speeding on wrong side of road spared jail, after judge ruled her \u201cdangerous driving is on the lower side\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

The collision happened at 6am in September 2020 when Giurgila\u00a0moved out of a bus lane into the path of traffic.\u00a0The court heard he had not signalled, did not have lights and was seen riding “erratically”. Giurgila’s barrister accepted that there was evidence of contributory blame on the part of his client. However, the court also heard that dash-cam footage from the\u00a0motorcyclist,\u00a0Mark Finnegan, showed negligence by\u00a0failing\u00a0to reduce his speed to a level where the collision could have been avoided.\u00a0Judge O’Donohoe\u00a0concluded\u00a0Giurgila\u00a0had been mainly responsible for the collision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

O’Donohoe\u00a0went on to say that “cyclists have become a nightmare in Dublin”, adding that “you never know with cyclists what they are going to do or anticipate what they are going to do.”<\/p>\n

Among those criticising the judge’s remarks in sentencing, the Irish Cycling Campaign\u00a0said\u00a0it is “deeply concerned” by the judge’s comments and suggested they “risk\u00a0normalising hostility toward people who choose to travel by bike”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“This 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,”\u00a0campaign chair Neasa Bheilbigh\u00a0said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge who reduced a cyclist’s damages by 80 per cent and branded cyclists a “nightmare in Dublin”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-372873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}