Row over 5c to cost Dublin postman €20k
John Moran, aged 45, of Coolevin, Ballybrack, Co Dublin, told Judge Jacqueline Linnane he had put €2.20 into an automatic ticket machine in a bus in Dún Laoghaire and had to ask the driver for a receipt which would allow him to later claim a 5c refund from Dublin Bus. Mr Moran said that after having finished his delivery round on September 19, 2013, he entered the No 70 bus to go home and put €2.20 into the machine for his €2.15 fare. He had to ask the driver to press a button to print his 5c refund receipt.
When the driver had asked him if he was all right he had turned to him and said: “I’m grand. I just don’t like people trying to rob me.” The driver had ordered him off the bus and, when he refused, the gardaí had been called.
Mr Moran told Jeri Ward, counsel for Dublin Bus, that he had been defamed by being publicly ordered off the bus and mention of the gardaí being called. Later people on the street had asked him why he had been ordered off a bus.
He told Ms Ward he had not been aggressive and abusive to the driver and denied having called him “a wanker” or saying “you are all the fucking same.”
Judge Linnane said bus driver Brendan Connolly had been perfectly justified in asking Mr Moran to get off the bus. His refusal had resulted in other passengers being delayed for up to 40 minutes and two other men becoming “extremely threatening, abusive and intimidating” to the driver.
She was satisfied Mr Connolly had acted professionally at all times. Another passenger, Donal McDermott, had heard shouting by the two other men, one of whom had said he would have Mr Connolly’s job.
She accepted fully Mr Connolly’s account of what had taken place and told Ms Ward her client had no case to answer and dismissed Moran’s defamation case against Dublin Bus.
She awarded legal costs against Mr Moran.
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