A judge held that a Dublin businessman and former election candidate “lost the plot” when he produced a slash-hook after a work crew cut off his water supply.
Brian Garrigan, 57, of Fairview Corner, Dublin 3, who unsuccessfully ran as an independent candidate in the general election in 2020 and this year’s council elections, was accused of engaging in threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour under the Public Order Act, a weapons offence for the production of a slash-hook during a dispute, and criminal damage to freshly laid tarmac.
The incident occurred at Annesley Bridge Road, Fairview, Dublin, on October 22nd last year, when Garrigan’s water was cut off by road workers who refused to turn it back on over the weekend.
He said despite repeated requests, workers cursed at his wife and covered a stop cock, which was switched off and covered with tarmac.
Garrigan, the owner of an IT recovery and computer repair business, pleaded not guilty to all the charges but was convicted following a hearing before Judge John Hughes at Dublin District Court on Monday.
The judge ruled that Garrigan had broken the law, but noting the circumstances, he said he would treat him benignly if he donated to the Make a Wish children’s charity, which the accused agreed to do. The case resumes on November 5th.
Judge Hughes said it appeared after the issues with his water supply that the accused was “at the end of his tether and lost the plot” and acted in a way he should not have behaved.
Garda Lawrence Kavanagh said that around lunchtime on Sunday, he had been in a patrol car nearby when a woman came up to tell him what was happening.
He observed that the accused was behind a construction barrier, and there were workers present, as well as members of the public, including families, in the area. A café was also open nearby.
He told prosecutor Siobhan Matthews that Garrigan was “swinging a large slash-hook into the ground” while workers tried getting him to stop but were standing back from him.
The garda said some people were “frantic” when they told him about the accused, whose wife and children were crying in their doorway.
Garda Kavanagh said the accused had been swinging the slash hook into tarmac newly laid over water pipes. Garrigan, he recalled, was upset at being disconnected due to the work and that he had no water since the previous evening.
The garda was the sole prosecution witness and agreed with defence counsel David Staunton that insofar as he reported subjectively on the feelings of people at the scene, he could not know them.
He also agreed that the accused put down the slash-hook when gardaí asked him and that he cooperated. He said the disconnection severely impacted the accused’s home and business.
In evidence, which was uncontradicted, Garrigan said the crew turned off his water on the Saturday evening. He said they were Romanian and did not speak English, but his wife was from Romania and spoke to them.
He claimed they were verbally abusive to her, and they still had no water on that Sunday afternoon; they could not drink, bathe the children or wash their uniforms for school the next day.
He told Judge Hughes that he asked the crew, via his wife, to put the water back on. However, they laid down the tarmac over the stop cock access cover. Garrigan claimed they were asked four times; he tried to get an engineer out to help, but when they refused the fifth time, he took out the slash hook.
He explained that he had it for his computer work because he often had to destroy hard drives and used the slash hook for that purpose.
However, he denied that he swung it and said that he used it to “scratch” away the tarmac to turn back on his supply. He also said he could have reset the tarmac, which the workers would pull up the following day anyway.
An hour and a half later, when he was released from the local garda station, another crew pulled up the tarmac and reconnected his water.
The judge noted the father of two had no prior convictions of relevance, with just one case recorded about a parking offence in 2007.
Mr Garrigan’s website and social media say he has donated more than 550 free computers to various causes to help Syrian and Ukrainian families, Temple Street Hospital, as well as suicide, homeless, and addiction charities.
He announced on X, formerly Twitter, that he would run in the local elections for Dublin Central “to put Irish lives first”, with a photo of him holding an “Irish Lives Matter” poster.
During his run for the Dáil, he secured 588 votes, including transfers, in the Dublin Bay North constituency and was eliminated in the fourth round of counting.
He had canvassed on various issues, including immigration, health, the climate emergency, housing and gender equality.
