Self-confessed Paedo Priest Tadhg O’dalaigh Awarded Legal Costs after Indecent Assault Conviction on Schoolboy Is Quashed

By Ruaidhri Giblin
Irish Sun
June 1, 2017

https://www.thesun.ie/news/1077543/self-confessed-paedo-priest-tadhg-odalaigh-awarded-legal-costs-after-indecent-assault-conviction-on-schoolboy-is-quashed/

A SELF-CONFESSED paedo priest whose conviction for indecently assaulting a schoolboy in the 1970s was quashed has been awarded legal costs for his successful appeal.

The Catholic Church had funded Tadhg O’Dalaigh’s legal representation, according to lawyers for the Director of Public Prosecutions, who had opposed the costs application on grounds that he was “not out of pocket himself”.

Tadhg O’Dalaigh was awarded costs today

The 73-year-old last week successfully appealed his conviction for indecently assaulting a schoolboy at Colaiste Chroi Naofa boarding school in Carrignavar, Co Cork in the 1970s.

O’Dalaigh, of Blackrock, Dublin, had been found guilty by a jury and was sentenced to five years imprisonment with the final two suspended on December 18, 2014 for the offence.

This sentence was served by the time his appeal was determined.

The Court of Appeal quashed O’Dalaigh’s conviction and last Friday the three-judge court refused an application by the DPP for a retrial.

The three-judge court felt it would not be in the interests of justice to order the retrial of someone who had served their sentence in full.

O’Dalaigh’s barrister Patrick Gageby accordingly applied for legal costs for the appeal.

Today, Judge Alan Mahon said the court believed it appropriate to award O’Dalaigh his costs.