{"id":636180,"date":"2026-08-14T04:10:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T04:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/636180\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T04:10:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T04:10:18","slug":"church-not-required-to-pay-towards-schools-e90000-settlement-for-child-scarred-by-bramble-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/636180\/","title":{"rendered":"Church not required to pay towards school\u2019s \u20ac90,000 settlement for child scarred by bramble \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A school operating from a Church of Ireland centre in Howth<\/a>, Co Dublin, has failed to get a court order requiring the church to indemnify it for a \u20ac90,000 settlement for a child who suffered facial scars after falling into a bramble on the premises. <\/p>\n

The settlement for Cara Faye O\u2019Brien O\u2019Keeffe, who sued through her father Mark O\u2019Brien, was previously ruled in 2022<\/a> by High Court judge Garrett Simons, who described it as \u201cvery generous\u201d. <\/p>\n

It arose from an incident on April 19th 2018, when Cara, then aged three, fell into a bramble while playing at Deerpark Montessori school, licensed to operate from St Mary\u2019s Church Parish Centre in Howth, and suffered lacerations and abrasions to her face.<\/p>\n

When approving the settlement, Simons said it was an unfortunate accident and the child suffered \u201cquite nasty injuries\u201d.<\/p>\n

The school in 2024 initiated an application for an indemnity or contribution to the settlement from the representative church body of the Church of Ireland. <\/p>\n

In a judgment published this week, High Court judge Tony O\u2019Connor noted that, while the church knew the school proposed to enter into settlement negotiations, it did not consent to the settlement put forward for approval in 2021. <\/p>\n

In seeking approval, counsel for the school had said most judges would favour awarding compensation to the child and the settlement was thereby justified.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor had to decide whether there had been a breach of a duty of care by the church to the child or the school that caused the child\u2019s injuries in April 2018. The amount of the settlement was not an issue for him.<\/p>\n

The judge said there was no dispute that, under the Occupiers Liability Act, the church owed the common duty of care towards a visitor. <\/p>\n

The parties knew children from the school used the garden area while being supervised by teachers, he said. A teacher gave evidence that, during garden play, when the children were watching a worm digging into the earth, she noticed the injury caused to Cara by a bramble away from where the other children were observing the worm. <\/p>\n

Photos taken later that day identified a single bramble shoot among the clematis lining the wall surrounding one side of the play area where the incident occurred, the judge said. <\/p>\n

Cara had liked playing in this area where the bramble shoot tore her skin from the middle top of her nose up over the eyelid of her left eye, he said. This type of incident had not occurred previously, he said.<\/p>\n

On foot of evidence, including from a strimmer operator, the judge concluded the bramble shoot had only grown out over a few days before the incident, and after garden maintenance carried out on behalf of the church on March 24th, 2018.<\/p>\n

Other evidence included that the school operated a daily inspection of the garden area before the children started to play there. The system of inspection, supervision and maintenance of the garden area by the church and the school was not criticised and was not an issue, he said.<\/p>\n

If the bramble shoot was evident on March 24th, 2018, it would have been tackled by the strimmer operator, the judge found.<\/p>\n

The church maintained the garden well and the suggestion it should have been alerted to this single bramble shoot that grew over a few days before the incident \u201ctests any sense of reasonableness\u201d, he said. \u201cOne cannot expect the church to alert the school to the potential for a bramble shoot\u201d. <\/p>\n

On foot of his findings, the judge ruled the church did not breach the common duty of care to a visitor and refused the application for indemnity or contribution. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A school operating from a Church of Ireland centre in Howth, Co Dublin, has failed to get a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,107467,18,13,14,6,13417,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-636180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-church-of-ireland","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-howth","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}