A man describing himself as a reformed criminal who is currently serving a jail sentence has been awarded €10,000 damages in the Circuit Civil Court for injuries he suffered in a rear-ending incident just under seven years ago.
Ian Maloney told Judge Ian Connolly he had criminal convictions in his chequered past, but had turned his life around and was now the author of three books of poetry which were on sale for the benefit of charitable organisations.
His barrister Conor Kearney, who appeared with Tiernan Solicitors, told the court that Maloney, currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for possession of a semi-automatic firearm with intent to endanger life in February 2022, had been a back-seat passenger in a taxi when it had been rear-ended in April 2019 by an uninsured driver.
Maloney, who will spend his 39th birthday in prison next May, claimed he had suffered severe personal injuries in the incident, at traffic lights on Whitehall Road West, Crumlin, Dublin.
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The court heard that Lorraine O’Reilly, of Suncroft Drive, Tallaght, who was uninsured at the time, had driven into the back of the taxi of Denis O’Sullivan, of The Avenue, Belgard, Tallaght. The €10,000 award was against the Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland (MIBI), which covers uninsured drivers.
Maloney, a father-of-four whose address was given as Cashel Road, Crumlin, Dublin, was brought by ambulance to the accident-and-emergency department of Tallaght Hospital, complaining of lower back pain. He was diagnosed with a soft tissue injury to his back and left shoulder.
It was revealed he had received €14,000 when he was 17 after having fallen on a shore and broken his collar bone. He divulged that he had also received €7,500 for two other incidents involving injury more than 10 years ago, and had suffered back injuries in 2015 when assaulted in Mountjoy Prison. He claimed he had never fully recovered from this, but had not claimed compensation.
Each and every injury alleged by Maloney in his €60,000 claim had been challenged in a full defence on behalf of the MIBI, on grounds that the rear-ending had been a very minor collision and unlikely to have caused the injuries he complained of.
Connolly held that while there had been an element of exaggeration in Maloney’s evidence, it was an “eggshell skull” case as a result of the injuries he had suffered in prison in 2015, and awarded him €10,000 against the MIBI.
The “eggshell skull” principle says defendants are responsible for the consequences of their actions, even if the person harmed has a condition where those consequences are more severe than would normally be expected.
The Circuit Criminal Court had last year heard Maloney had confessed to gardaí that in February 2022 he had fired shots into a house. He was sentenced in 2025 by Judge Sarah Berkeley to 10 years’ imprisonment. The court heard at the time that he had more than 100 previous convictions.
