Sean Farren’s daughter, Sinead McDaid, 22, died when her car left the road and crashed into a culvert. Farren believes the accident was caused by loose chippings on a newly resurfaced road, and says that adequate warning signs were not in place.
He says the garda investigation was flawed because the scene was not closed off or fully examined until the following day, by which time it had been contaminated.
Donegal county council refused to comment on the case last week. It contested an action in the High Court in July 2004 taken by Rodney McDaid, Sinead’s widower. The case was settled without an admission of guilt by the council. The council disputed claims that warning signage was inadequate and argued that other cars had passed safely through the location before McDaid.
The garda who took photographs of the scene the day after the accident was Michael Murray, who was later found to have withheld information from the Morris tribunal and whose testimony on certain events was deemed not credible. While there is no suggestion that Murray acted wrongly in the McDaid case, his photographs have been disputed by Farren as they show more road signs than witnesses have said they noticed on the night of the accident.