A claim for damages by a former prison inmate over concerns for his health as a result of having to slop out a chamber pot in his cell was dismissed by a judge yesterday in the first such compensation case to be decided by the courts.
Troy Cremin (29) had brought the civil action against the State on a number of grounds, alleging that he was forced to share a chamber pot and slop out with other prisoners and forced to endure passive smoking while in Cork Prison.
Mr Cremin, of Palm Springs, Ardarrig, Douglas, Cork, claimed the toilet facilities at Cork Prison were like those of the Stone Age as he had to share a mayonnaise bucket as a chamber pot with five other cell mates.
He also claimed he was subjected to passive smoking in a cell with five other smoking prisoners at Cork Prison between October 2004 and February 2005 when he served a jail term for harassing elderly neighbours in Douglas.
Yesterday Judge Con O'Leary dismissed Mr Cremin's claim for damages and awarded costs to the State, which is facing hundreds of similar actions at both Circuit Court and High Court level.
The governor of Cork Prison, Jim Collins, had denied that the conditions in the jail were filthy, and said that 95 per cent of prisoners who wished to get out of their cells at night to go to the toilet were facilitated to do so.
Pearse Sreenan, for the State, said Mr Cremin never complained of toilet facilities or passive smoking while in prison, and he was treated in a fair, just and reasonable manner at all times.
Mr Cremin had sought damages on several grounds, but all had been dismissed at earlier hearings with only one claim left to be decided yesterday - whether he was entitled to damages as a result of fears he had about contracting an illness from sharing the chamber pot.
Yesterday's ruling was welcomed by the Irish Prison Service compensation claims manager Martin Smyth, who said that as well as the judge's decision his ruling on costs was a significant aspect of the case.
"This decision will reinforce our determination to vigorously contest the several hundred claims that have been lodged against the State, while we are also determined to seek out our costs from every failed litigant."
There are some 900 claims outstanding from inmates, but the State has to date only been able to establish that 440 of these actually served time.
The bulk of the actions relate to Limerick, Cork, Mountjoy and Portlaoise prisons, Mr Smyth said.
