The grand delusions of property ‘victims’

LAST week, as the air grew thick with victims, I couldn’t help thinking about a man by the name of John Deegan.

Mr Deegan is 48 years old, endures constant physical pain, and is confined to a wheelchair as a result of a car accident in 2001. He was a passenger in a vehicle which went out of control and ended up overturned in a field in Ballymun, north Dublin.

In the normal manner of these things, he sued the driver, who was insured by Quinn Direct. The insurance company refused to pay out on the claim. Instead, Quinn Direct made a case that Mr Deegan was involved in fraud, that he hadn’t been in a car accident but had sustained his injuries in a fall from a high-rise flat in Ballymun.