{"id":622271,"date":"2026-09-12T08:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T08:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/622271\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T08:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T08:50:11","slug":"michael-oflynn-wins-challenge-to-ex-business-partners-personal-insolvency-arrangement-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/622271\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael O\u2019Flynn wins challenge to ex business partner\u2019s personal insolvency arrangement \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Property developer Michael O\u2019Flynn<\/a> has won his High Court<\/a> challenge to a personal insolvency arrangement (PIA) secured by his former business partner and neighbour John O\u2019Driscoll.<\/p>\n

Judge Nessa Cahill, in upholding O\u2019Flynn\u2019s objection to the PIA coming into effect, found O\u2019Driscoll was \u201cunequivocally not insolvent\u201d in November 2021.<\/p>\n

That means his PIA is deemed at an end and he is now liable in full for debts that would otherwise be covered by it but does not affect payments previously made under it, including to Bank of Ireland<\/a> and the Revenue<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Among her findings, the judge held, on foot of uncontradicted evidence, O\u2019Driscoll had misappropriated \u20ac15,725 from pub operator Ezeon Entertainment Ltd, established by O\u2019Driscoll.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Flynn had claimed O\u2019Driscoll, from Ovens, Co Cork<\/a>, owed him about \u20ac950,000 and was not insolvent when he provided a personal financial statement (PFS) in November 2021 as part of the personal insolvency process.<\/p>\n

During the High Court hearing, senior counsel Martin Hayden, with barrister Keith Farry, for O\u2019Flynn, argued it was \u201ca contrivance, a prepack PIA\u201d.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Flynn\u2019s alleged debt arose from a \u20ac2.2 million personal guarantee given to him concerning liabilities of Ezeon. Former Ireland rugby international Ronan O\u2019Gara<\/a> was a co-guarantor on the loan agreement, and filed a sworn statement with the court as part of the dispute.<\/p>\n

In O\u2019Driscoll\u2019s PIA, O\u2019Flynn\u2019s debt was listed as a contingent liability and given a nominal value of \u20ac1 because he had not proved it during the PIA process.<\/p>\n

In her judgment, Cahill expressed \u201cmystification\u201d over how Alan McGee, the personal insolvency practitioner who prepared the PIA for O\u2019Driscoll, formed the view O\u2019Driscoll was cash-flow insolvent in November 2021 on the basis of disclosures in his PFS \u201cwithout giving any apparent consideration to the realisability of a property at Leslie\u2019s Arch\u201d. <\/p>\n

This \u201celephant in the room\u201d was never properly addressed by the debtor or the PIP, she said.<\/p>\n

Located at Ballincollig, Cork, the Leslie\u2019s Arch property, owned by O\u2019Driscoll, was valued in his PFS at about \u20ac395,000, with an outstanding mortgage of almost \u20ac208,000. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Flynn had argued the sale of that property would be sufficient to discharge O\u2019Driscoll\u2019s debts to Bank of Ireland and the Revenue, leaving a substantial surplus. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what happened, and quickly,\u201d the judge said, noting the property had sold for \u20ac430,000.<\/p>\n

Despite there being \u201csimply no evidential support for, or even explanation of\u201d the view that O\u2019Driscoll was insolvent, the PIP has \u201crepeated this view in bald terms since November 2021, blanketly denying the objections raised by Mr O\u2019Flynn\u201d, the judge said.<\/p>\n

The four-year litigation included a successful appeal by O\u2019Flynn to the Supreme Court<\/a> after another High Court judge held he lacked the necessary legal standing to object to the PIA due to having failed to \u201cprove his debt\u201d at an earlier stage of the process. <\/p>\n

In a statement on Friday, O\u2019Flynn said the High Court had accepted his view O\u2019Driscoll had realisable assets \u201cmore than sufficient\u201d to meet his debts as set out in his own financial statement. The issue of faith and trust in the personal insolvency system is \u201cfundamental to me\u201d and the court decision \u201cis a critical outcome in that regard\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Property developer Michael O\u2019Flynn has won his High Court challenge to a personal insolvency arrangement (PIA) secured by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[42553,7863,72,46,73,61,60,264202,11522,8779],"class_list":["post-622271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-ronan-ogara","tag-bank-of-ireland","tag-business","tag-cork","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-michael-o-flynn","tag-revenue-commissioners","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622271","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=622271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}