{"id":329852,"date":"2026-03-05T07:18:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T07:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/329852\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T07:18:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T07:18:07","slug":"injunction-sought-over-occupation-of-ballyfermot-car-park-at-rear-of-former-gala-cinema-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/329852\/","title":{"rendered":"Injunction sought over occupation of Ballyfermot car park at rear of former Gala Cinema \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The owner of a car park at the rear of the old Gala Cinema building in Ballyfermot, Dublin<\/a>, is seeking a High Court<\/a> injunction preventing a number of people from occupying the property. <\/p>\n

Kaifan Ltd, owner of the building, which closed as a cinema in 1980, claims Thomas Kearney, a former tenant of the car park, and a number of other people, had illegally taken possession of the property on February 26th, the day after possession had been peaceably taken for Kaifan by asset recovery and security firm Blackwater Asset Management. <\/p>\n

On Wednesday, John O\u2019Regan, barrister for Kaifan, was granted short service of injunction papers seeking the removal of Kearney and \u201cpersons unknown\u201d from the property. <\/p>\n

The application was made with only Kaifan represented and Judge Brian Cregan adjourned the matter to next week. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Regan said Kearney was a former tenant of the car park and had a four-year lease but did not pay any rent and some \u20ac220,000 was now owing. He said Kaifan had the right to determine the lease after three years, but as Kearney did not pay any rent at all, he was given three months to vacate last October. <\/p>\n

Counsel said his client wanted to develop the site and had to some extent \u201ctaken the eye off the ball\u201d.<\/p>\n

Paul Comsa, security operative with Blackwater, said in an affidavit that his company took possession of the car park peaceably on February 26th at 4.30am.<\/p>\n

At about 8.45am, Kearney arrived with several other individuals and he phoned the garda\u00ed saying that \u201ca group of males that he didn\u2019t know, wearing strange green uniforms, occupied his yard without permission and replaced the locks on the gate\u201d.<\/p>\n

Comsa said there were at least four separate businesses trading from the car park that appeared to be independent of Kearney.<\/p>\n

Later that day, a group of people approached the locked gate and requested that the Blackwater staff leave, but they did not. The group then threatened that if Blackwater did not leave, they would \u201ccome back and make you leave, one way or another\u201d. <\/p>\n

Later that evening, he said, a large group of males arrived and one who had a chainsaw tried to cut the locks on the main gate. The Blackwater staff were asked to open the gate, but refused and were told the gates would be broken. Garda\u00ed were called. <\/p>\n

Attempts were made to cut the locks from the outside, but failed. Two men then jumped over a wall into the yard. One of them had a hammer and used it to break the padlock on the gate.<\/p>\n

Kearney, and later his sister, Siobh\u00e1n Kearney, who had some papers in her hands, arrived. Garda\u00ed attended at this stage and after Siobh\u00e1n Kearney showed them paperwork which she said proved her brother had a right of ownership of the yard, officers said they could not assist as it was a civil dispute. <\/p>\n

Counsel told the court that solicitors for Kaifan subsequently received an email from Siobh\u00e1n Kearney, stating that access to the premises had been interfered with in the absence of any court order and that locks were changed without judicial authorisation.<\/p>\n

She also said \u201cindividuals in security-style or military-type attire\u201d had attended the premises to do this, and access was subsequently restored, and Thomas Kearney is in possession. The alleged termination and entitlement to possession by Kaifan are \u201cexpressly disputed\u201d, she said. <\/p>\n

As a result, Kaifan brought proceedings seeking injunctions and orders removing Thomas Kearney and unknown persons from the property. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owner of a car park at the rear of the old Gala Cinema building in Ballyfermot, Dublin,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,615,73,61,60],"class_list":["post-329852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-dublin","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}