A doctor has gone on trial charged with dangerous driving causing the death of an 18-year-old in Co Meath nearly three years ago.
Dr Aloysius Moroney (62), North Road, Finglas and Baltreasna, Ashbourne, Co Meath, has pleaded not guilty to the alleged offence which occurred at Harlockstown, Ashbourne, on March 24th, 2001.
He is also charged with drink-driving.
The jury of eight women and four men at Trim Circuit Court was told yesterday that the deceased, Hugh Gallagher (18), Broadmeadow Green, Ashbourne, was on his way to the cinema in Blanchardstown with a friend when their car was struck by a car driven by the accused.
Mr Will Fennelly, prosecuting, said the accident happened around 5.10 p.m. on a Saturday as Mr Gallagher's car approached Ratoath.
He said the evidence would be that the doctor's car crossed on to the wrong side of the road and hit the other car, which ended up in a ditch.
Mr Hugh Gallagher was driving the car. He was seriously injured and pronounced dead at 7 p.m.
The other passenger in the car, Mr Brian Gallagher, told the court yesterday afternoon that he was 18 at the time and a student at Dublin City University. He said he and Hugh were going to Blanchardstown when in the corner of his vision he saw "something I knew shouldn't be there".
He said it was a car and "as soon as I saw it, it hit us. It hit us hard". His next memory was waking up in the car in a dyke.
Cross-examined by Mr Michael O'Higgins, defending, he said it seemed that in a split second the back of the doctor's car seemed to swing out into the path of their car.
Garda Sgt Seamus Walsh, a PSV inspector, examined both cars and found no mechanical defects. Asked by Mr O'Higgins if loss of tyre pressure could cause a car to "swing out" as described by the previous witness, he said that in the absence of evidence of a blowout that was only a possibility.
He did not agree that low tyre pressure on its own would cause a vehicle to swing out of control.
When Judge Raymond Groarke put it to him that he did not accept a car would go out of control at 45 m.p.h if the tyre pressure was at around 10-15 lbs of pressure, the garda said: "You would find some deviation but it should not go out of control."
The trial continues today