Solicitor Brian O'Donnell will learn this morning whether he can appeal a High Court order requiring him and his wife to vacate a mansion in the Dublin suburb of Killiney by 5pm today.
Mr O'Donnell went to the Court of Appeal within hours of the High Court's decision, seeking more time to appeal the trespass order obtained by Bank of Ireland and a receiver.
He asked the three-judge appeals court if he and his wife, Mary Patricia, should “continue to pack up” their belongings.
They were in “somewhat of a lacuna”, he said, since the High Court ordered them to leave “the family home” at Gorse Hill on the Vico Road.
Accompanied in court by Jerry Beades of the self-styled New Land League, Mr O'Donnell told Mr Justice Ryan there had been "some publicity around this", to which the president of the appeals court responded that it would be unreal to pretend the court had no idea about the situation "even if we are judges".
The High Court had earlier given Bank of Ireland an order preventing the couple from interfering with receiver Tom Kavanagh, who had been granted possession of Gorse Hill. The receiver wishes to sell the house, valued at around €7 million, to meet part of a €71.5 million debt owed by the O'Donnells for various unpaid property loans.
Short hearing
In the Court of Appeal, Mr Justice Ryan told Mr O’Donnell, who was representing himself, that the court would agree to a short hearing at 10am today.
Mr O’Donnell replied: “In the meantime, do we continue to pack up?”
Mr Justice Ryan responded that fairness dictated that both sides – Mr O’Donnell and the receiver, along with Bank of Ireland – should be present for any hearing. Mr O’Donnell undertook to contact the bank to alert them to the hearing.
Granting the trespass order, Mr Justice McGovern had said the house was not the O’Donnells’ residence as they lived in England and that anyone who remained on the property was interfering with the receiver’s right to possession.
The judge was also critical of the O’Donnells bringing in third parties who made incorrect public statements at a time when court proceedings were ongoing. He did not accept Mr O’Donnell’s claim he had no control over the New Land League and had in fact “invited them in”.
‘Tactical manoeuvre’
This showed no regard for the rule of law, he said.
Bank of Ireland sought the trespass order against the parents claiming what they did was a “tactical manoeuvre” to frustrate efforts to take possession of the house.
That hearing was told that while the couple’s children, Blake, Blaise, Bruce and Alexandra, had left the property on foot of a court order, the father and mother had moved in claiming they had a right of residence granted to them by the children.
Cian Ferriter SC, for the bank, said Mr O' Donnell and his wife flew in over a weekend from what has been their permanent home for the last three years in Surrey, England, to take up occupation of Gorse Hill.
That house was owned by a company called Vico Ltd over which the O’ Donnell couple’s debts were partly secured and receiver Tom Kavanagh was entitled to possession, counsel said.
Mr Kavanagh was entitled to an injunction preventing trespass by the O’Donnells or others and to orders that they deliver up keys and alarm codes for the property, he said.
