Gayle Killilea, wife of bankrupt developer Sean Dunne, has been ordered by a court not to reduce her assets below €50m amid concerns efforts are being made to put her husband's assets beyond the reach of creditors.

Mr Justice Brian McGovern, who presides over the Commercial Court, made the temporary order pending a hearing of further proceedings.

The order was sought by Insolvency Service official Christopher Lehane, who, as the Official Assignee in bankruptcy, is in charge of Mr Dunne's estate and realising funds for creditors.

Mr Justice McGovern said there was a strong prima facie case that Ms Killilea and her husband were "involved in an elaborate scheme" to frustrate efforts by Mr Lehane and a US bankruptcy trustee to administer Mr Dunne's affairs.

Gayle Killilea, wife of bankrupt developer Sean Dunne, has been ordered by a court not to reduce her assets below €50m amid concerns efforts are being made to put her husband's assets beyond the reach of creditors.

Gayle Killilea, who has legally separated from her bankrupt developer husband Sean Dunne, says she has not received any benefit from the €14m sale of a house on Dublin's Shrewsbury Road.
Ms Killilea is a businesswoman in her own right and Mr Dunne owes her and her children a lot of money, she said in an affidavit to the High Court.
She says she has produced evidence to show Mr Dunne transferred ownership of "Walford", Shrewsbury Road to her in 2005 long before he was declared bankrupt in 2013 over default on some €164m in loans to Ulster Bank.

However, Ms Killilea believes the likely beneficary of the sale of Walford last year is John Dunne, her stepson and Sean's son from his first marriage.

Ms Killilea is challenging the basis for an injunction preventing her reducing her assets below €50m because of what an official overseeing her husband's bankruptcy investigates says is a scheme by the couple to put Mr Dunne's assets beyond the reach of his creditors.
Ms Killilea wants to cross examine the bankruptcy official, official assignee Chris Lehane, over the evidence which he (Lehane) used to obtain the injunction freezing her assets.

Staff quarters, a leisure complex, tennis court and cinema feature in the redevelopment plans for Belgravia House, an English mansion that is home to Gayle Dunne, who is fighting her developer husband’s bankruptcy officials in three jurisdictions.

The property on 3.2 acres in Surrey was bought for £3.925m (€4.5m) in 2014, with planning permission in place to demolish the existing red-brick residence, coach house and stables.

Computer-generated images of the proposed new dwelling, submitted with the planning application, show an expansive, modern house with a balconied master bedroom set in wood-fringed parkland.

The grant of approval provides for a 15,712 sq ft, three-storey, seven-bedroom home plus a two-storey gate lodge, triple garage, swimming pool, spa, gym, sauna, steam room and games room.

Neighbours on Bishopsgate Road in Englefield Green, Egham, say Gayle Dunne is residing in Belgravia House. Her husband, who has been declared bankrupt in Ireland and Connecticut, has been seen at the property.

Self-styled cleaner to the stars Gina Farrell fled her solicitor’s office this week after grabbing the deeds of an apartment she owns and against which an undertaking had been given to pay a €100,000 debt, the High Court was told Thursday.
Mr Justice Donald Binchy was told that on Monday last Ms Farrell, with her husband Michael and an unidentified man, had gone to the offices of her solicitor Enda P. Moran in Celbridge, Co Kildare, on the pretext she needed to check the deeds and then ran off with them.
A locum solicitor who tried to stop them and recover the deeds had been “pushed aside”.
The court heard that her solicitor had previously given an undertaking to another firm of solicitors, to whom Farrell allegedly owed a legal costs debt of €158,471, that a settlement figure of €100,000 would be paid to them directly from the sale of her apartment in St Rapheal’s Manor, Celbridge.
Judge Binchy was told that solicitor Brien O’Brien had represented Ms Farrell, trading as Gina Farrell Cleaning Services, in a 17-day High Court case in which developer Seán Dunne was awarded €22,500 on the basis Ms Farrell had overcharged him, between 2003 and 2006, for cleaning services at an apartment complex his company Hollybrook (Brighton Road) Management owned in Foxrock, Co Dublin.

Sean Dunne’s Irish bankruptcy has been extended for 12 years by the High Court over “wilful and deliberate” failure to co-operate with the trustee administering his bankruptcy, including hiding or not disclosing information about certain assets .

Ms Justice Caroline Costello said Mr Dunne, who was in court today, was a “deeply dishonest” witness who clearly told lies about a number of matters, engaged in “wholesale non-compliance” of his statutory obligations and demonstrated an “incredible” attitude.

“I find it difficult to conceive of a bankrupt who could be more obstructive and less co-operative with the bankruptcy process.”

The judge also described as “at best disingenuous” claims maintained by Mr Dunne over a period that his principal address was a property at Stillman Lane, Connecticut, US, including over a time when that house was unfurnished or had minimal furniture and for sale.
Mr Dunne, she noted, had said he slept in townships in South Africa and enjoyed the “peace and quiet” of living in a house without furniture.
He had ultimately admitted his address was an address which had been provided by his wife to the Commercial Court in other proceedings.