FIANNA FÁIL deputy leader Éamon Ó Cuív will face a claim for damages and may be cited for contempt of court for leading a protest in the grounds of the five-star Ashford Castle Hotel at the weekend, a lawyer for the west of Ireland hotel said yesterday.
James Dwyer SC, counsel for the hotel’s owners, told Mr Justice John Edwards that Mr Ó Cuív had led the protest against the alleged closure of a public right of way in defiance of a High Court injunction.
“It was an entirely inappropriate course of action for him to take,” Mr Dwyer said. “A significant number of people, including Mr Ó Cuív, blatantly ignored the court order . . . We intend to have him joined as a defendant to the proceedings.”
Mr Dwyer said the hotel owners, Ashford Castle Estate Ltd and Ashford Castle Properties Ltd, would be seeking damages from all defendants and asking the court for a declaration that no public right of way existed through the grounds of the estate.
He said there would probably be a significant delay in the full trial of the proceedings coming before the court and the owners were agreeable to the lifting of an injunction against two existing defendants on their undertaking not to take any further action against the hotel.
They are Hugh Lavelle, Cong, Co Mayo, and Sile Gibbons, Quiet Man Cafe, Main Street, Cong, who, respectively, are chairman and secretary of Cong Community Council. Mr Dwyer told the court it had been announced on local radio last week that a protest would be held at Ashford Castle on Friday evening.
On this basis the owners had obtained an interim injunction restraining the two officials of the community council from going ahead with the protest.
The order had been read out to all of them, including Mr Ó Cuív, when they assembled.
The injunction prohibited the defendants from obstructing the entrance, roadways and bridges at the Ashford Castle estate and prevented them from obstructing the movement of people entering or leaving the hotel grounds.
Mr Dwyer had told the court the dispute had arisen out of a decision taken by the owners during the Quiet Man Festival in August.
During the event, to protect guests and patrons of the hotel, the owners had restricted traffic, closed off and manned a number of gates on the estate. Gates near the estate’s helipad had remained closed since August 30th.
A group, including members of the community council, had held an hour-long protest against the closure of the gates and, with cars, had blocked a bridge, causing inconvenience to guests who were trying to get to Shannon airport.
The hotel owners later received a letter stating the community council would take action to maintain the right of way and a protest had been advertised on local radio for September 23rd.