A bank is seeking to enforce repossession orders over properties owned by a candidate in this year’s European elections and his wife.
AIB obtained summary judgment for €17.4m in February 2011 against Thomas Darcy and his wife Antoinette, arising out of loans to them for four Dublin properties, including their family home at Myra Manor, Malahide, Dublin. Mr Darcy was a candidate for Direct Democracy Ireland in Dublin and received just over 4,000 first preference votes.
The judgment was obtained by default in the High Court central office but the Darcys later brought a legal challenge to it.
They claim they did not know they could seek to have the judgment set aside until a July 2011 High Court decision in relation to repossessions.
Mr Darcy also said he was depressed at the time because of a series of tragedies and disasters that befell him and his family including the loss of his business, the destruction of his family home by fire and a series of bereavements of family members.
Mr Justice Paul Gilligan adjourned an application by AIB to enforce the repossession orders after rejecting arguments by the couple's lawyers that court rules did not permit the bank to bring new proceedings over the matter.
Rossa Fanning BL, for AIB, said the High Court had, in 2012, rejected the application to set aside on the basis of Mr Darcy’s personal problems.
In a separate set of proceedings, the couple applied to overturn the default judgment on the basis a letter of demand for repayment of the €17m had not been sent to them. This was rejected by another High Court judge and appealed to the Supreme Court which ruled the couple had a triable case in relation to the letter of demand and remitted it back to the High Court, counsel said.
The issue over the demand letter, which had been subject of another High Court judgment, had been superseded by new legislation, counsel said.
As a result, AIB, rather than resuming the original case, brought new proceedings and also served a discontinuance notice in relation to the first case. While the first case should have been ended before the second one was begun, this caused no prejudice to anyone, Mr Fanning argued.
Vincent P Martin BL, for Mrs Darcy, said the bank had moved on two separate fronts and if such practice was allowed stand it would set a dangerous precedent as it meant a litigant could issue any number of proceedings.
Mr Justice Gilligan said he was satisfied the bank had complied with court rules in relation to the discontinuance notice. While there may have been an error in issuing it after the second set of proceedings had begun, it was an error of form rather than substance, he said.
He believed the case for the repossession orders should have gone ahead yesterday but, in the interests of justice, he would grant the defendants an adjournment to next month to allow them file affidavits outlining their defence.