{"id":459845,"date":"2026-05-21T09:43:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T09:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/459845\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T09:43:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T09:43:08","slug":"wexford-mans-14-year-litigation-shows-how-some-are-gaming-the-system-judge-says-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/459845\/","title":{"rendered":"Wexford man\u2019s 14-year litigation shows how some are \u2018gaming the system,\u2019 judge says \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Wexford<\/a> man\u2019s litigation over 14 years frustrating a judgment creditor\u2019s bid for repayment of more than \u20ac1 million shows how some litigants are \u201cgaming the system\u201d, a High Court<\/a> judge has said.<\/p>\n

Judge John Jordan made his observation when refusing Brendan Kirwan\u2019s preliminary motions seeking to strike out an application to set aside a conveyance of his joint interest in a property at Coolcotts, Wexford, to his wife Frances, leaving her as the sole owner.<\/p>\n

The set aside order is sought by Filbeck Limited arising from a 2012 judgment obtained against Brendan Kirwan. The conveyance, it claims, was an effort to prevent it enforcing that judgment.<\/p>\n

The judge said the litigation history is \u201cprotracted\u201d and \u201cillustrates in a rather stark way how litigants such as Kirwan can delay and frustrate the delivery of justice \u2013 by abusing the court process \u2013 or by doing what many might describe as gaming the system\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kirwan has delayed and frustrated Filbeck getting the case heard and determined and it is clear he \u201cwill endeavour to continue to do so if allowed\u201d. <\/p>\n

Kirwan\u2019s conduct has clear consequences in this litigation, but it does not end there as his wasting of court time deprives other litigants of time for their cases, the judge said.<\/p>\n

He set out a chronology of relevant events, dating from June 1982 when Kirwan and his wife were registered joint owners of the property at Glenville Road, Coolcotts, Wexford.<\/p>\n

In early 2011, the property was registered in Frances Kirwan\u2019s sole name. <\/p>\n

In late 2011, proceedings seeking summary judgment for about \u20ac1 million against her husband were issued by Filbeck. <\/p>\n

In August 2012, Kirwan issued proceedings against Eamonn Buttle, a director of Filbeck. <\/p>\n

In November 2012, Filbeck got judgment, in default of appearance, against Brendan Kirwan for about \u20ac1.05 million.<\/p>\n

Kirwan applied a month later to set aside the judgment and proceedings were commenced by him in 2013 disputing liability. <\/p>\n

In July 2018, Filbeck issued the current proceedings seeking to set aside the 2011 conveyance of the property to Frances Kirwan.<\/p>\n

In October 2019, the High Court dismissed his 2013 proceedings over inexcusable delay. It also struck out Kirwan\u2019s 2012 proceedings against Buttle, granted Filbeck leave to execute the judgment obtained in its 2011 proceedings and refused Kirwan\u2019s bid to set aside that judgment.<\/p>\n

In 2022, the Court of Appeal dismissed appeals by Kirwan. The Supreme Court agreed to hear a further appeal and in May 2025 upheld the Court of Appeal decision.<\/p>\n

Filbeck\u2019s application to set aside the conveyance then proceeded to hearing.<\/p>\n

In February last, another High Court judge refused Kirwan\u2019s application to set aside the judgment obtained by Filbeck.<\/p>\n

In his judgment, Jordan said much of what his colleague Judge Cian Ferriter had said in his February decision could be repeated in relation to the strike out motions brought by Kirwan. <\/p>\n

It is as if Kirwan and his son Barry \u201crefuse to hear or accept they cannot rehash matters which are not new\u201d and which Kirwan has lost the right to litigate, the judge said.<\/p>\n

Kirwan had brought \u201cargumentative\u201d motions seeking to have Filbeck\u2019s claim struck out for a variety of reasons, including alleged corruption, fraud and misconduct.<\/p>\n

Having considered the evidence and the law, the judge said that Filbeck had a strong case for the set-aside order sought and Kirwan had advanced no basis to strike out its claim. <\/p>\n

There was nothing to support Kirwan\u2019s claims of corruption, fraud and misconduct, the judge said. He had persisted in making \u201centirely baseless\u201d claims of wrongdoing against other parties and their lawyers, he said. <\/p>\n

Kirwan\u2019s motions were \u201ca clear attempt\u201d to circumvent previous final orders and amounted to an abuse of the court\u2019s process, he held.<\/p>\n

Filbeck\u2019s application to set aside the conveyance will be heard on a later date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Wexford man\u2019s litigation over 14 years frustrating a judgment creditor\u2019s bid for repayment of more than \u20ac1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,73,61,60,9270],"class_list":["post-459845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-wexford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459845","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=459845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}