FFtopay£5,100to trauma tis ed infant

July 2001

A presidential salute with a difference has cost Fianna Fáil more than £5,000.

Wexford Circuit Court, in an infant ruling, heard yesterday how a one-year-old child took fright in his parents’ car after a poster bearing the image of Mary McAleese fell onto the bonnet during the last Presidential Election campaign.

Counsel for the child said the infant took fright and suffered from post traumatic stress after the incident at Kilmore on November 10, 1997.

Counsel told how the child’s mother was driving the car along the raod when the large poster came ‘ howling down’ onto the vehicle, as a result of whicht eh young infant took fright.

The child continued to show signs of stress and nervousness for ‘quite some time’ afterwards, he said.

The infant ruling case was brought against Martin Mackin, a nominee of Fianna Fáil. Judge Oliver Buttimer said she would make an order for £5,100, with costs, to the Plaintiff.