Court hears neighbour offered €20,000 to settle hedge dispute

A man involved in a court battle with his neighbour over a hedge and laneway in Co Wicklow has told the High Court the Four Courts was the last place on earth he wanted to be.

“A please and thank you would have sufficed,” James Madigan said.

He was replying to his neighbour’s lawyer who had asked was it too late for common sense to prevail in the boundary dispute.

The case is before the High Court via an appeal from the Circuit Court which last year found in favour of James and Anne Madigan of Askintinny near Clogga Beach in Co Wicklow.

The Madigans were awarded a total €5,000 damages for trespass and nuisance and said they were entitled to a right of way on to the laneway for the purpose of maintaining their hedgerow.

The couple's neighbours, Kathleen Maureen Rueter and her daughter and son Marian and Seán Rueter, who run a caravan park at the end of the disputed laneway near the beach, appealed that decision to the High Court.

The court has heard an open offer has been made by the Rueter side to settle the case which includes €20,000 contribution towards legal costs previously incurred.

At the centre of the case is the alleged widening of the entrance to the laneway where it meets the public road and which the Madigans claim encroaches on their property.

Yesterday, James Madigan agreed he had written a letter to Wicklow County Council complaining the Rueter caravan park was encroaching on his property and he also complained of unofficial discos on the site.

In 2006, Mr Madigan had objected to the granting of the continuation of the licence for the caravan park.

Signs

placed in laneway Under cross examination, Mr Madigan agreed he had at one stage put up 14 signs

along the laneway saying nobody had a right to encroach on his property. At another time, he put a white line on the road to mark out his border.

At the time, “our backs were to the wall ” and there was a lot of encroachment, he said.

Mr Madigan said Kathleen Maureen Rueter had pulled his cap off and pushed him in an incident on the road after he had soil delivered.

Counsel for the Rueters, Peter Bland SC, asked Mr Madigan to look at Mrs Rueter in court. Counsel said she was 85 years old and 4 foot 10 in height.

“You were a prison warder and six foot,” counsel said.

Mr Madigan said Mrs Rueter was a very active 85 year old woman who drove her car every morning to shop in Arklow.

In evidence, Anne Madigan said, after the Rueters raised the laneway, people could see into her house.

When the Madigans had soil delivered to protect the corner of their property, the Rueters came and Kathleen Maureen Rueter and her daughter got on top of the soil and told them they were “squatting and only mortgage holders”, she said.

“I stood with my mouth open,” she said.

The case continues before Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns.