Bord Gais has a policy of taking photographs of completed reinstatement work to road surfaces, a court has been told.
Yesterday, the practice paid off when a judge dismissed a claim for up to £30,000 damages by a seven-year-old boy who broke his arm after falling off his bicycle, allegedly at the site of a newly-reinstated road surface.
Judge Liam Devally in Dublin Circuit Court was told that Bord Gais contractors photographed the restoration immediately after completion, a photographic record which predated the accident by eight days.
After "close inspection" of the photographs, and taking into account the evidence of two children cycling in the area at the time and engineering experts, Judge Devally said he was unable to find evidence of Bord Gais negligence.
The children, including plaintiff Paul Dalton, of Rushbrook Court, Templeogue, Dublin, told of a "bump" in the road having been responsible for throwing him from his bicycle and breaking his arm.
The boy's mother told Mr Mark De Blacam, counsel for Bord Gais, that the alleged accident site had not been pointed out to her until five days after the accident.
A civil engineer, Mr Malcolm Gooding, for Bord Gais, told the court that no road surface was ever left like a billiard table and child and adult cyclists had to learn to live with surface indentations or bumps. There had been an excavation on the concrete road surface and it appeared to him to have been properly reinstated with lean-mix concrete.
Judge Devally made no order on costs.