A LIMERICK hotel has been ordered to hand over closed circuit television footage to a woman who claims that her family was traumatised when they found rats in their room in the middle of the night.
Details of the claims were heard at Limerick Civil Court this week when solicitor Mark Murphy, applied for an order compelling Smorgs Limited trading as the Travelodge Hotel, Coonagh Roundabout, Limerick, to release the CCTV footage.
Mr Murphy was applied to have footage of the corridor area outside rooms 12 and 14 handed over to his client Ms Kathleen O’Driscoll to show the “distress, hysteria and commotion of the night”.
Ms O’Driscoll, together with her husband and three children, were attending a funeral in Limerick on January 6, 2015 and stayed at the Travelodge hotel.
Sometime before 4am on the morning of January 7, they were awoken several times because of the alleged presence of rats in the bedroom.
This, the court heard, allegedly caused Ms O’Driscoll, her husband and young children, a great deal of distress.
The family were subsequently moved to another room and Mr Murphy said his client claimed that the CCTV footage would support her case. A personal injury claim for damages was lodged in court over the shock and post traumatic stress disorder caused to Ms O’Driscoll and her family.
Counsel for the defendants, Stephen Healy said that Travelodge would deny that this was the case.
He said that the night manager “would say something completely different” and deny he said there were rats in the bedroom. A full defence to the claim had been filed and the hotel disputed that the incident ever happened.
Ms O’Driscoll’s motion was granted and the hotel was ordered to hand over CCTV of the corridor area to her legal team in advance of a Circuit Court hearing .
