Overloading case against boatmen is dismissed

JUDGE SAID A TRAP WAS SET FOR BOATMAN WHO ASKED TO CARRY EXTRA

A CASE of passenger overloading involving a Killarney lakes tourist boat, at the height of the tourist season, has been dismissed – district court judge James O’Connor said while there wasn’t entrapment, “a trap was set”.

Killarney boat owner Tadhg O’Connor of High Street, Killarney, the owner of number of commercial boats on the lakes, and skipper Eddie McSweeney, accepted their boat was carrying 15 passengers instead of 12 passengers on July 8, 2014 when it returned to Reen Pier Ross Castle after completing the world renowned Gap Trip through the three lakes of Killarney.

However, there was a climate of intimidation and intense rivalry in the boating industry in Killarney and “a rival operator” had set them up midway through the journey at point of chaos where passengers would disembark and walk around a weir, the court was told in May when the case was contested.

Not taking the three passengers on board would have left them stranded in a remote area of the park, it was also argued.

The prosecution against both men was brought by the Department of Transport and Tourism, with involvement also by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, who issue permits on the lakes.

The lengthy hearing in May was told that the three extra passengers joined the boat at the Old Weir bridge stop at Dinis between the upper and middle lakes of Killarney.

“A rival operator shouted at the skipper these are your people,” defence solicitor Pat F O’Connor said.

This stop on the trip, famous since the 1861 visit of Queen Victoria to Killarney, was “like the port of Piraeus, a place of organised chaos,” the solicitor added.

And in the middle of the chaos the skipper took the people on board, the solicitor said.

The previous court also heard of “disharmony” among boat operators and intense competition for passengers in what was now a big industry on the lakes of Killarney.

In final submissions on Monday, solicitor Mr O’Connor said three people “we can assume they were foreigners” would have been left stranded, in “a remote area, and would have had to walk eight to nine miles, three or four of it through the national park”, if they had not been taken on board.

He referred to the duty, under the Merchant Shipping Acts of rescuing shipwrecked or distressed passengers.

In his decision, adjourned to Monday afternoon, at Tralee District Court, Judge James O’Connor said he was dismissing both cases “on the evidence”.

“It wasn’t entrapment, but a trap was set,” Judge O’Connor said.

While there was no evidence of collusion, “we have to accept it was contrived by a rival operator,” the judge said.

There was also “no evidence” that the three extra people paid for their journey and this was what boating and the carriage of persons entailed.

The judge also referred to the defence line that “currents” on the lakes would have made it dangerous to return later for the passengers.

However, Tom Rice, barrister for the Department, argued that if there were dangerous currents, then “this was all the more reason not to put too many people in the boat.”