Two more cases that show up the absurdity of our compo culture

By Ryle Dwyer IN June the Earl of Desmond Hotel on the outskirts of Tralee had a problem. At 3 o'clock one morning some Travellers pulled into private parking lot in front of the hotel with their caravans. They indicated that they planned to stay there, unless the hotel gave them 2,000.

When the manager, Michael Mannix, called the gardaí, they were helpful but they explained that their hands were tied. The hotel needed a court injunction to get the travellers to move from the parking area and that would cost about 7,000 euro, and if some of their friends did the same thing the hotel would have to obtain another injunction costing a further 7,000 euro. Thus in the economics of our crazy litigation culture, the manager was being offered a bargain at just 2,000 euro to get rid of them.

"I was highly abused by these people who came onto the hotel's private property, but I wasn't going to pay them one brown penny even if they stayed for 12 months," he told Donal Hickey of the Irish Examiner. "They threatened to set dogs on me and told me they'd break every window in the hotel."