Children left terrified after armed gardaí raid wrong house and receive €52,500 – The Irish Times

A judge has awarded a total of €52,500 to three children who were left terrified after armed gardaí broke into the wrong house in Ballyfermot, Dublin, and entered their bedroom.

Solicitor Conor Kearney told Judge Fiona O’Sullivan at the Circuit Civil Court that several members of the Garda Armed Support Unit entered their bedroom and pointed their guns at a cupboard before allowing the children to put their doors down. stairs, where they were kept with their parents for two hours while their house was searched.

Kearney, who appeared with Chris Horrigan of Blake Horrigan Solicitors, told Judge O’Sullivan that Ruby Maeve O’Reilly Gibbons, now 11, and her sisters Molly (10) and Kayleigh (16) had been very afraid during the raid in September 2022.

He said that shortly after the incident, all of the children had to receive counseling for shock and trauma and that their family and social lives were disrupted.

The lawyer said that the family, including the children’s parents, had sued the Garda Commissioner and the Minister of Justice and that settlement offers of €17,500 had been made in respect of each child, which he recommended to the court on the basis that liability could become an issue. due to existing legal authority.

The court heard that the parents, of Clifden Road, Ballyfermot, Dublin 10, had each already settled their separate claims for €60,000 in personal damages for sums that were not disclosed to the judge.

The court was told that armed gardaí had raided the wrong house and searched it over a two-hour period while the parents and their three children remained downstairs. The children filed their claims through their mother Erica O’Reilly.

Kearney said the facts were the same in all three cases and that the medical reports presented to the court were similar in terms of the distress suffered by the children and their treatment. He said no defense had been presented in any of the three cases, but a full defense had been presented in the cases involving his parents.

Judge O’Sullivan, approving settlements totaling €52,500 for the three children, said they had suffered a harrowing experience and she felt the money offered was fair and appropriate.