Football club faces fundraising campaign to meet €46,000 compensation bill

A Co Dublin soccer club will have to hold a fundraising campaign to pay €46,000 in personal injuries compensation to a teenager who suffered serious scald injuries on its premises six years ago.

Barrister Martin Dully told Judge Sinéad Ní Chulacháin in the Circuit Civil Court that scalding hot chocolate spilled over Abbie Murphy Greene, then aged eight, at a food and beverage stall at Swords Celtic Football Club.

The court heard that the club’s insurers, Elite Insurance, had gone bust since the June 2015 accident leaving the club having to meet a €46,133 assessment by the Injuries Board, which the judge approved on Thursday.

Mr Dully, who appeared with Seamus Maguire Solicitors, Blanchardstown, for Abbie, said she suffered particularly nasty and significant scalding injuries to the front of her shoulders and lower body when the spillage happened.

Counsel said fellow barrister Laurence Masterson and the club’s solicitor Hugh O’Neill, of Hennessy Perozzi & Company, were in court to give an assurance of the club’s honourable intentions with regard to doing everything it could to meet the assessment.

Central Bank fund

Mr Masterson told the judge the club, while it had no assets, was taking the matter very seriously and would be applying to a Central Bank’s fund which covers losses suffered by clients of an insurer that goes into liquidation.

“We are hoping that the fund will meet 65 per cent of the assessment and even in that event the club will still have to mount a fund-raising campaign to pay the remainder of the compensation if not all of it,” Mr Masterson said. “The club intends raising the money for Abbie.”

Mr Masterson said the club, which occupies grounds at Balheary, near Swords, had 500 junior members. It was a well-known and respected community club and also provides services for children with special needs.

Mr Dully said Abbie, of Corduff Park, Blanchardstown, will be 15 in late October and had been treated immediately following the injury for severe burns, intense pain and shock. She had to undergo prolonged post-accident treatments.

She had since made a full recovery but had been left with a residual skin discolouration.

Judge Ní Chulacháin, who examined the discolouration, said it was significant and was in an area that would be to some extent evident as a result of dresses Abbie might wish to wear in the future.

“The assessment is within the range of compensation for an injury of this nature, albeit at the lower end. There is no guarantee Abbie would get any more than that if her case went to trial,” the judge said.

She put a stay of six months on the payment into court of the compensation in order to allow the club an opportunity to raise funds.