Widow loses fight for €795k damages payout

A woman rearing her family on a widow’s pension since her husband was killed in a workplace accident 14 years ago has failed in a bid to have a €795,000 damages award paid out to her under the State-backed Insurance Compensation Fund.

Mr Justice Gerard Hogan, in refusing the application of Helen Guiney, of Sean Moylan Park, Kiskeam, Mallow, Co Cork, said he had reached his conclusion with the “deepest possible personal regrets”.

The judge said Ms Guiney’s moral claim to compensation was, as a matter of abstract justice, quite unanswerable.