O'Flaherty v Comyns and Others

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Court: High Court
• Judge: Ms. Justice Siobhán Stack
• Judgment Date: 31 October 2025
• Neutral Citation: [2025] IEHC 590
• Docket Number: Record No. 2021/4274P

Between:

Shannon O'Flaherty

Plaintiff

and

Michael Comyns, John Quilter, The Commission of An Garda Síochana, The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Ireland, and The Attorney General

Defendants

[2025] IEHC 590

Record No. 2021/4274P

THE HIGH COURT

JUDGMENT of Ms. Justice Siobhán Stack delivered 31 October, 2025 .

Introduction

1 . This is an application to amend a defence delivered on behalf of the third, fourth, fifth and sixth named defendants (“the State defendants”) on 14 June, 2023. The motion to amend was issued on 21, March 2025, and heard on 20 October, 2025.

2 . The proceedings were commenced by plenary summons on 25 June, 2021 and a Statement of Claim was delivered on 20 October, 2021. The first and second defendants were, as of the date of the Statement of Claim, a current and a retired member of An Garda Síochána respectively, and the claim relates to their investigation of certain sexual offences allegedly committed against the plaintiff on 22 January, 2012 and on 2 February, 2012 when she was 13 or 14 years of age.

3 . Neither the first nor the second defendant was the investigating officer but it is alleged that they acted improperly in connection with the investigation of the alleged offences against the plaintiff, as a result of which neither of the two men whom the plaintiff alleges abused her was ever charged.

4 . The investigating officer apparently made a complaint to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (“GSOC”) which apparently made serious findings against the first and second defendants. It is alleged that those findings were subsequently quashed in High Court judicial review proceedings for breach of fair procedures, and the plaintiff complains that she was never notified in respect of the GSOC investigation, its report, or the High Court proceedings.

5 . The Statement of Claim is, with respect, deeply unsatisfactory as it fails to identify with any degree of specificity the cause of action against the State defendants. It contains a rolled up plea against all defendants at para. 19 alleging that each of them is guilty of “negligence, breach of duty (including statutory duty), conspiracy, misfeasance in public office, intentional and/or reckless infliction of emotional harm, breach of the Plaintiff's constitutional rights, and breach of her rights pursuant to the European Convention on Human Rights”. It is then alleged that the defendants' actions were in addition “deliberately and fraudulently concealed from [the plaintiff] for many years”. Contrary to Order 19, rule 5 of the Rules of the Superior Courts, no particulars are given of this allegation of fraud which appears to be made against all defendants, including the State defendants.

6 . This rolled up plea is followed up by a list of 23 particulars which do not distinguish between the actions of the first and second defendants and those of the State defendants. This makes it very difficult for the State defendants to know precisely the cause of action which is alleged against them or what the material facts giving rise to those causes of action are said to be. For example, particular (a) alleges that all of the defendants committed, as well as conspiring to commit, a criminal offence including obstructing and/or preventing the course of justice as well as an offence contrary to s. 62 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005, which apparently comprised, inter alia, the disclosure of information obtained in the course of carrying out of duties which is likely to have harmful effect.

7 . I suspect that it is not in fact contended that the State defendants committed a criminal offence or conspired to commit one and that this is in fact intended only to particularise a claim against the first and second defendants. However, it is an example of the inadequate pleading of the case which makes it very difficult to know which of the 23 particulars are said to be failures on the part of the State defendants or any of them.

8 . On 23 March, 2025, the State defendants raised particulars of a kind typical to personal injuries claims, that is, directed in the main at the particulars of personal injuries which are undoubtedly set out in the Statement of Claim and sought to address issues such as whether the plaintiff suffered an identifiable psychological injury, asking her to vouch special damages, and so on. I have not seen the replies but the nature of the particulars raised is an understandable response to the heavy emphasis in the Statement of Claim on the psychological trauma suffered by the plaintiff. However, no particulars appear to have been raised so as to identify the cause of action against any of the State defendants, for example, whether it is alleged that any of them have committed the tort of misfeasance in public office, which is one of the torts mentioned in the rolled up plea at para. 19 of the Statement of Claim. Neither does it seem that any particulars designed to tease out the alleged breach of constitutional or Convention rights have been raised.

9 . The next problem is that under “particulars of loss and damage and personal injury including emotional harm”, a narrative of the difficulties suffered by the plaintiff from February, 2012 onwards is set out. At least some of what is contained in this narrative appears to relate to the actual alleged sexual assaults and it is not made clear whether this could be said to be a loss or damage suffered as a result of the alleged unlawful actions of the first and second defendants, let alone the State defendants.

10 . All of this has made the determination of what should be a straightforward procedural motion more difficult than perhaps it need have been.

The application to amend

11 . Turning to the substance of the motion, the application is to amend the defence so as to introduce three preliminary objections on the part of the State defendants.

12 . The first of these is that the plaintiff is precluded from maintaining a claim for personal injuries against “the defendant” – though presumably this is a reference to all of the State defendants — as the plaintiff has failed to obtain an authorisation to maintain the claim. Such an authorisation is required whenever a “civil claim” within the meaning of s. 3 of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board Act, 2003, is made. Section 4 of that Act defines such a claim, broadly speaking, as one in which damages for “personal injuries” are claimed, subject to certain exceptions.

13 . Although, as I have said, the precise claim against the State defendants is somewhat unclear, given that the loss identified in the Statement of Claim seems to consist entirely of personal injuries suffered by the plaintiff, I think it is reasonable to assume, at least for the purpose of this application, that the claim against the State defendants is a “civil claim” within the meaning of the 2003 Act, and therefore one in respect of which the plaintiff is obliged, by virtue of s. 12 of that Act, to obtain the authorisation of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board before proceedings are brought.

14 . The second preliminary objection is that it is said that the plaintiff's claim for personal injuries against the State defendants is statute-barred in whole or in part by reason of “the Statute of Limitations 1957 – 2000 (as amended)”. No particular provisions of the Statute of Limitations are identified, even in the alternative.

15 . This second preliminary objection also states that...