This article is from page 25 of the 2008-11-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 25 JPG
MICHAEL Dillon told the trial that he felt ‘fine’ driving on the day of the accident and rejected suggestions that he had fallen asleep at the wheel.
The father-of-two, a fitter based in Connemara, had travelled to Port- magee in Kerry the day before the accident to join his colleagues from Galway Scuba Diving Club.
He had got up at 5am and left his Inverin home at 5.30am to drive to Portmagee. He arrived there at
9.30am and did two dives off Val- entia that day. He later went out for dinner and had four or five pints of Heineken. He said he remained in the pub until around lam and then went back to a house that was rented by some members of the sub aqua club.
There, he was handed a bottle of beer but only drank a mouthful and fell asleep. He was awakened at 2.30am and went to the hostel where he was staying. He went to bed and slept until 9am when a phone call from his wife woke him. He went
back to sleep until 10am and af- ter getting up, he was between two minds whether to stay in Kerry for another day.
He eventually decided to drive home and left at around llam. He said he got a headache about 40 minutes into the drive and pulled over and took paracetamol and a drink. He contin- ued on with his journey and said the headache went away, but said he did not remember anything after passing Bunratty. “Nothing, ‘til after the ac- cident,” he told the court.
He said after the accident, he re- membered “sitting in the jeep. The windscreen was broken and the bon- net was on the windscreen.” He said he had no memory of seeing the two cyclists and had no memory of his jeep veering off and leaving the dual OF NU UTE
He said he learned that Mr Flan- nery had died when he arrived at his Inverin home later that evening.
He told the trial he had several medical examinations carried out in the aftermath of the accident, in
an effort to ascertain what had hap- pened to him, but no explanation emerged. He said he did not drive for 10 months after the accident and did not dive until April of this year.
Under —_cross-examination _—_—by Stephen Coughlan, for the prosecu- tion, Mr Dillon said he felt “fine” while in Kerry. Asked could he have fallen asleep while driving, he said, “No. I felt comfortable driving.” He denied that his jeep had left the road as a result of falling asleep. “I didn’t feel tired or anything,” he said.