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Dublin: 14 °C Monday 20 May, 2013

Court adjourns application for Priory Hall developer’s bankruptcy

The High Court adjourns an application making Thomas McFeely bankrupt in Ireland, so that his UK bankruptcy can be challenged.

Thomas McFeely, who was declared bankrupt in London last Friday, was not present in court for today's hearing.
Thomas McFeely, who was declared bankrupt in London last Friday, was not present in court for today's hearing.
Image: Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland

THE HIGH COURT has adjourned an application to have Thomas McFeely, the developer behind the infamous Priory Hall complex, declared bankrupt in the Republic of Ireland.

The court was due to hear an application this morning from a woman who claims to be owed €300,000 by McFeely as a result of a previous High Court order, relating to structural defects in a property she had bought from McFeely.

The BBC reports that the woman, Theresa McGuinness, is set to pursue a challenge to his bankruptcy in London.

RTÉ adds that McFeely’s own lawyers said they had been surprised by the news of McFeely’s filing for bankruptcy in England – saying they were not aware of his application until after it had been filed.

They added that they could not act for McFeely in that light. McFeely was not present for today’s hearing.

McFeely, a former IRA hunger striker, travelled to the UK on a British passport to claim bankruptcy in that jurisdiction; he had been ordered to surrender his Irish passport by the High Court last year.

Seán Quinn declared bankrupt at the High Court in Dublin

Priory Hall residents criticise McFeely’s reported bankruptcy

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Comments (16 Comments)

  • wot a joke….he is ordered to give up his irish passport but left worth his british one, for gods sake. Criminal. He should be in jail.

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  • Georgie bleedin’ Burgess!

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  • Typical.. His patriotism doesn’t extend past his wallet! Happy to be a British citizen when it suits him.. I wonder what his sinn fein/ira buddies think.

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  • Clearly British rule isn’t so bad for Mr. McFeely that he’ll take the Queen’s justice over that in our fine Republic.

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  • Former hunger striker? By.the looks of it, he hasn’t stopped stuffing his face since. Gout laden chancer.

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  • Tom mc feely is a coward! When will his Ailesbury mansion be taken from him? Meanwhile myself and my neighbours remain homeless, with no solution in sight. Well, at least I can sleep at night knowing “Tiocfaidh ar la”.

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  • Bock the Robber sums this guy’s track record well over here:

    “Isn’t it remarkable that a man who once took up arms against the Crown should now throw himself on the mercy of that very same oppressor, while at the same time there is no escape for the hundreds of homeless people who can’t live in his death-trap apartments but who must continue paying the banks for them?”

    http://bocktherobber.com/2012/01/priory-hall-builder-tom-mcfeely-gets-uk-bankruptcy

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  • Tens of thousands of the best and the brightest are leaving Ireland because there is no hope of a decent future for any of them here. These people are the century’s first Irish diaspora. These are not self-imposed exiles. These are responses to desperate circumstances not of their making (unless your David Drumm).

    As a backdrop to this, you have sociopaths like McFeely whose morality seems to be self-aggrandizement at any cost. (Please, check out the characteristics that mark sociopaths. Tell me what doesn’t fit.) It cannot be lawful to build buildings that are unsafe, though one wonders who inspected them and signed off on them. It cannot be lawful to pass off something as basic as housing as sound in order to profit on that misrepresentation. Whatever about his bankruptcy protecting him from collectors, they shouldn’t protect him from the law.

    For now, he is released from litigations levelled against him for the work he left undone, but is he released from the litigations against his illegal behaviour? Here is a person who deserves exile. Now that his passport is in custody, wouldn’t this be a good time to drop him off on the Isle of Man, or maybe just short of the Isle of Man, and deny him entry ever again into Ireland, his property seized?

    But then, you would probably have to do the same for most of the people that hold government positions too. Didn’t they do the same: take money off you, promise you something, then not deliver? Misrepresenting all along the way? Hell, you have maggots like Gilmore who actually justifies misrepresenting his position to you. What’s the difference between McFeeley and let’s say a Rabbitt? Liars and theives, the lot.

    Here’s another idea. We should all leave Ireland. It would be like a 19th century Australia in reverse. Instead of shipping the crooks all off to some remote island, we’d leave them all on one.

    I guarantee they’d miss us.

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  • You don’t need a passport to travel between the uk and here so he didn’t need the British one either!!

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