Transport firm fined €1m for horror crash which killed women

Nolan Transport has been fined €1m after an incorrectly secured 25-tonne load led to a horrific crash that resulted in the death of two women in Jul 2007, including the wife of Kilkenny hurling goalkeeper James McGarry.

Nolan Transport, with a registered address at Oaklands, New Ross, Co Wexford, was represented by its managing director Patricia Nolan, who had entered a plea of guilty at an earlier sitting to a charge of failing to ensure that the load of steel coils was properly secured ahead of the tragedy near Thomastown, Co Kilkenny.

In passing sentence at Wexford Circuit Criminal Court yesterday, Judge Raymon Fullam said the defendant is a well-known transport company which had a duty of care to road users. The defendant’s lorry and trailer, carrying six steel coils weighing about 25 tonnes, was en route to Athy Co Kildare, having been loaded in Wales the previous day, and transported by ferry to Rosslare before moving to the company yard in New Ross.