10 Million reasons to smile

A LOUTH businessman who took a libel action against his former employers after an incident in which he sleepwalked naked has been awarded €10 million in damages, the highest libel award in the history of the state.

The jury agreed that a press release sent out by mining company Kenmare Resources in July 2007 insinuated that Donal Kinsella, 67, had made inappropriate sexual advances to company secretary Deirdre Corcoran on a business trip to Mozambique in May that year.

Mr Kinsella sued Kenmare Resources and its chairman Charles Carvill on foot of the press release claiming it had made him an international “laughing stock” over sexual impropriety allegations of which he had been exonerated by an independent internal inquiry.