A judge has ruled that a Galway farmer accused of assaulting Junior Minister Anne Rabbitte by throwing a bag of cow dung at her does have a case to answer.
39 year old Joseph Baldwin of Ballyaneen, Gort denies the charges and last month his legal team moved to have the case dismissed.
The incident happened at O' Sullivans Hotel in Gort on January 4th last year, during a meeting on a planned biogas plant.
After Judge Alec Gabbett issued his ruling today not to grant the application for a dismissal of the case, legal counsel for Mr. Baldwin said the defence will now be going into evidence.
Judge Gabbett said the best evidence in the case was the CCTV which showed that the sealed bag of cow dung did not hit Anne Rabbitte, but shows Minister Rabbitte moving to avoid the bag.
He said the State assault case relied on Anne Rabbitte’s apprehension under Section 2 of the Non Fatal Offences Against the Person Act that she was going to be struck by the bag.
Minister Rabbitte was present at Ennis District Court for today's ruling.
In evidence last month, she wept in the witness box as she recalled the incident, during which a bag was thrown in the direction of Deputy Ciaran Cannon but fell short.
Minister Rabbitte claims that Mr Baldwin then said "'I am not forgetting about you, there is one for you Rabbitte" and then he flung a bag towards her.
Mr Baldwin contends he never intended to harm anyone and thought it might be a way of getting through to two Government TDs that they were not helping or listening to the community.
He said on the day the went down to the farmyard and put dry cow dung in ziplocked bags, making sure they were secure and there was no smell from them.
He said: "I am not apologising because I believe that all I was doing was making the views of the community known and I didn’t hurt anybody in the process."
The case continues.
