Seán Dunne is seeking a US injunction against his son to prevent him from accessing €14 million the bankrupt developer believes is to be used to help settle the legal liabilities of Mr Dunne’s former wife, Gayle Killilea, The Irish Times reported. Mr Dunne’s lawyer, Luke McGrath, asked a New York court late on Thursday for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction preventing his son John Dunne from accessing funds realised from the 2013 sale of Walford, once Ireland’s most expensive home, to settle the legal case.
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Irish home and commercial property prices are forecast to dip slightly over the next three years, according to figures being used by European authorities to stress test banks across the EU in 2020, The Irish Times reported. The European Bank Authority, overseeing the assessment, said on Friday that its central projections were based on data received from national central banks. However, sources said that while the Irish Central Bank provided “a possible path which is based on latest trends” to European officials, it did not issue forecasts.
The difference in the figures speaks for itself: 27,792 cases of mortgage arrears where a payment has not been paid for two years or more, and 3,841 personal insolvency arrangements since 2013 where in many cases banks and other creditors agree to debt write-down deals, The Irish Times reported. Michael McNaughton, the new director of the Insolvency Service of Ireland, which overseas the State’s still-nascent insolvency regime, has called for more collaborative, imaginative engagement between debtors and personal insolvency practitioners on one side, and creditors on the other.
A lack of trust between banks and personal insolvency advisers is blocking attempts to resolve long-term mortgage arrears cases, the State’s new insolvency agency chief Michael McNaughton has said, The Irish Times reported. Mr McNaughton, who took over as director of the Insolvency Service of Ireland last year, has urged banks and personal insolvency practitioners to be “more collaborative” in their dealings with each other in order to resolve the large post-crisis backlog of insolvent mortgage cases.
The High Court has approved a Personal Insolvency Arrangement (PIA) allowing a man to write down almost all of his €60 million debts, The Irish Times reported…Mr Justice Mark Sanfey approved a PIA in respect of Enda Patrick Whelan of College Grove, Ennis, Co Clare. Mr Whelan’s creditors include National Asset Loan Management (NALM), a Nama company, which was owed some €56.4 million arising out of personal guarantees he had given in respect of four companies owned by his family.
Airline shares surged in Europe after Ryanair Holdings Plc said it expects to post a bigger-than-expected full-year profit following a spike in lucrative last-minute bookings over the Christmas and New Year holiday, Bloomberg News reported. Europe’s biggest discount airline now anticipates earnings for the 12 months through March of between 950 million euros ($1.06 billion) and 1.05 billion euros, and most likely in the middle of that range, according to a statement on Friday. It had previously forecast 800 million euros to 900 million euros.
Taoiseach Leo Vardakar has made it clear the Football Association of Ireland will not be handed a blank cheque to pay for its "mistakes of the past,” the Irish Post reported. The crisis-hit organisation had requested an €18m bail-out earlier this month to stave of the threat of insolvency. Minister for Sport Shane Ross said at the time the FAI – who face debts of up to €62 million euro – will not receive state funding. And the Taoiseach confirmed that is the approach his government still intend to take.
Irish households have reduced their debt by a third since the crash, figures from the Central Bank show. After a nearly a decade of belt-tightening, household debt in the Republic stood at €135.3 billion, or €27,489 per person, in the second quarter of 2019, The Irish Times reported. While this was still one of the highest debt levels in Europe, it was 33 per cent, or €67.6 billion, lower than the boom-time peak of €203 billion recorded in the third quarter of 2008 just as the financial crisis hit.
Pre-tax losses at a holding company for Michael JF Wright’s hospitality group last year increased almost threefold to €1.2 million, The Irish Times reported. However, the group is in expansion mode and has plans to open St Andrew’s Food Hall at Suffolk Street next year. Accounts lodged by The Wright Bar Group Ltd show that pre-tax losses increased from €419,809 to €1.2 million, due mainly to an exceptional cost. The group recorded the increase in losses as revenues declined marginally from €16.87 million to €16.31 million in the 12 months to the end of June last year.