THE FAMILY OF a child who had her fingertip cut off following an accident involving a retractable seat on the Luas have been awarded €50,000 in compensation in civil court today.

A judge was told how passengers helped a distraught mother search for the tip of her two year old child’s finger after the accident in September 2016.

Barrister Nathan Reilly told Judge Michael Walsh in the Circuit Civil Court that the end of the girl’s left ring finger had been completely amputated.

He said that once the fingertip was found, her mother rushed her daughter to the Beacon Hospital where she was initially treated before being transferred to Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin for surgery.

Reilly, who appeared with Donal T. McAuliffe Solicitors for the girl and her father, said surgeons at Our Lady’s had successfully reattached the fingertip and the child had continued to be treated for dressings at the hospital’s outpatient department.

The court heard that the girl, from Leopardstown, Dublin 18, had suffered a complete amputation of the tip of her left ring finger.

A female passenger who had been helping her mother search for the missing piece of finger had found it attached to a hinge on a retractable seat. She had wrapped it in tissue paper and had given it to the mum.

The girl’s father, who sued tram owners Transdev Dublin Light Rail and tram interior fitters Alstom Transport Ireland on behalf of his daughter, told the court in an affidavit that his daughter had been seated in her buggy which had been parked in the area designated for buggies on the Luas when the accident happened.

Reilly said that while the reattachment of the fingertip had been successful she would have a permanent cosmetic deformity of her finger and was seeking compensation for both psychiatric and physical injury.

He said the defendants had offered the now eight-year-old a settlement of €40,000 which neither he nor her parents were happy with.

“If the court rejects the offer then we will be asking you to transfer the claim to the jurisdiction of the High Court,” Reilly told the judge.

The judge allowed the parties time for talks and when Reilly returned to court he said the defendants had made an increased offer of €50,000 which the parents were happy with and which he was recommending to the court.

The judge approved the settlement offer with costs.