High Court:A High Court judge has made an order restricting a man from acting as a company director for five years unless certain capital requirements are met because of "irresponsible" behaviour by him that exacerbated the insolvency of his company.

Ms Justice Mary Laffoy also found Patrick McNamara’s company, Elite Logistics Ltd, which was wound up with debts of €3.1 million, has a 40 per cent beneficial interest in the home of Mr McNamara, its sole director, which was worth €2.1 million in 2007.

A transaction by Mr McNamara on the company’s books shortly before its liquidation in 2007 to show he had acquired that 40 per cent interest in the house at Golf Links, Malahide, Dublin, was invalid and amounted to fraudulent preference in breach of the Companies Act, she said.

The judge also found Mr McNamara used company money to buy an apartment in Scotland where his mother lived and to buy another apartment in Benalmadena in Spain.

Making a restriction order under section 150 of the Companies Act, she said Mr McNamara’s behaviour amounted to irresponsibility.