€10 million in damages for naked sleepwalker

A Louth businessman has received €10 million in damages after he took libel action against his former employees following an incident in which he sleepwalked naked.

Donal Kinsella was successful yesterday in the highest libel award in the history of the state.

The 67-year-old former employee of Kenmare Resources was awarded the damages by a jury that came to the conclusion that the company insinuated Mr Kinsella had made inappropriate sexual advances to company secretary Deirdre Corcoran on a business trip to Mozambique in May 2007.

The jury agreed that a press release underling the accusations had been sent out by Kenmare Resources in July of that year.

Counsel for Kenmare, Bill Shipsey, described the award as “off the Richter scale”.