Day 189 - 20 Nov 95 - Page 38
1
2 Q. You do not remember the police, the Garda, being called on
3 four separate occasions at the beginning of the strike?
4 A. I remember one incident where the Garda, the police --
5 one policeman stood at the door and said, "There is no
6 strike on here, none of them work in here" -- because it
7 was customary that McDonald's gave free food to the Garda,
8 or the police, when they came in.
9
10 Q. Do you mean that McDonald's kind of corrupted the police?
11 A. Well, no. It is common practice on the premises when
12 the Garda call that they give them a cup of coffee or
13 whatever. But there was also another bitter industrial
14 dispute on at the time with the post office workers, and
15 the Garda were coming from those incidents to our
16 incidents, which was a very small affair.
17
18 Q. It was a rough time for industrial relations in Ireland in
19 1979, in Dublin, was it not?
20 A. It was, yes.
21
22 Q. Can you go on past the end of the strike now?
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Mr. Rampton, I cannot draw the conclusion
25 that Mr. Justice Costello found that there actually had
26 been abusive and threatening language or intimidation,
27 can I?
28
29 MR. RAMPTON: You cannot, and I do not know enough about Irish
30 law to know whether there is some balance of convenience
31 rule. What your Lordship can conclude, I respectfully
32 suggest -- and what I shall invite your Lordship to do at
33 the end -- that if he had thought that the evidence for the
34 Plaintiffs was fabricated, he would not have granted an
35 order.
36
37 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. But if I understand page 1023
38 properly, Mr. Justice Costello read the affidavit; he did
39 not hear any oral evidence, and there was no
40 cross-examination.
41
42 MR. RAMPTON: He did not hear any oral evidence.
43
44 MR. JUSTICE BELL: And no doubt very sensibly thought the best
45 way was to make the order which he did make, and there
46 could be a full and proper trial in due course, if
47 necessary.
48
49 MR. RAMPTON: Which there never was. All I am saying is,
50 if -----
51
52 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Happily, I have not been called upon to deal
53 with an industrial dispute, but I have made many not
54 dissimilar orders just because the defendants would not
55 suffer from them and it might do a bit of good keeping
56 things calm.
57
58 MR. RAMPTON: I quite agree. As I said, all I would say about
59 it was that if he had thought that on the balance of
60 probabilities the allegations by the Plaintiffs and their
