The High Court awarded €8,500 to a child who was left with a small permanent scar after being struck by a ceiling fan during a package holiday in Tenerife. It also ordered the holiday organiser to repay the €3,596 cost of the holiday to the child’s father, making a total award of €12,096.
Mr Justice Cian Ferriter delivered judgment on an appeal from a Circuit Court order dismissing the claims. The case concerned injuries Mason Heeney sustained in an apartment in August 2015 and the family’s claim for the holiday cost.
The court heard that Kevin Heeney, Mason’s father, had twice asked aparthotel staff to move his family because he considered the fan dangerously low. He had struck his fingers on it shortly after arriving and requested an air-conditioned apartment without a fan. Staff told him no alternative was available. The hotel manager later apologised and said other accommodation had been free at the time.
On 11 August, Mr Heeney lifted Mason, then nearly three, to comfort him. The fan blade struck the back of the child’s head. Mason was treated at a local hospital, where the cut behind his right ear required three stitches. The judgment says the injury healed apart from a small permanent scar.
An engineer called for the plaintiffs said he could not identify Spanish or Irish standards setting a safe minimum fan height. He referred to American guidance and manufacturers’ recommendations of seven feet as a minimum. The fan blades’ lowest point was measured at six feet, nine and a half inches. The defendant called no evidence.
The organiser argued that the plaintiffs had not shown the fan height breached the duty of reasonable skill and care. It also disputed causation, arguing that Mr Heeney had lifted Mason above the fan and that his actions caused the accident. The court accepted, on the balance of probabilities, that Mason had been lifted to seven feet or marginally higher. It found the lift was a foreseeable act by a parent and that the accident would have been avoided if the family had been moved after the complaint.
The judge found the organiser breached its obligation under section 20 of the Package Holidays Trade and Travel Act 1995 by failing to arrange alternative accommodation after receiving specific notice of the hazard, despite an available room without a fan. The court did not resolve broader legal questions raised in earlier appeal decisions about which local or Irish standards should apply; it assessed reasonable skill and care on the evidence in this case.
The judgment ordered the full holiday price returned to Mr Heeney and €8,500 in general damages for Mason’s scar. The stated total award was €12,096.