Fintan O’Farrell, Declan Rafferty and Michael McDonald awarded damages

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Fintan O’Farrell, Declan Rafferty and Michael McDonald were awarded €2,500 each by the High Court for false imprisonment, in a decision reported on 13 January 2023.

The three men, all from Co Louth, had been jailed in England for trying to acquire weapons for the Real IRA. The court found that their detention in Portlaoise Prison under defective Irish warrants was unlawful, but that the English sentences had not been invalidated.

Mr Justice Cian Ferriter said the errors leading to the warrants were not trivial, but found no evidence that defendants knowingly breached the men’s rights. He concluded that each was entitled to €2,500, taking account of the unlawful detention and the serious offences for which they had been sentenced in England.