Howth coffee shop operator restricted from acting as company director

A man who ran a pier-side coffee shop in Dublin has been restricted by the High Court from acting as a company director for five years over his running of the business.

Daragh Heagney, who operated the shop from a semi-permanent stall at Howth Market on Howth Pier in Dublin, cannot act as a director of any public limited or unlimited company which has a share capital of less than €500,000 or of €100,000 for all other companies.

He was previously subject of a five-year restriction order, which expired in January 2016, in relation to another company. He was a director of a total of 13 companies, eight of which had been struck off the Companies Register for failure to make returns.

Eight months after his first restriction expired, he became a director of a company Adalbert Ltd which had been operating the coffee shop since 2013.

Adalbert was placed in liquidation by the High Court in June 2018 on the application of Revenue over unpaid VAT, PAYE and PRSI of around €22,000.

The liquidator, Aiden Murphy, then sought a restriction on Mr Heagney being a company director following an investigation into the affairs of Adalbert.

Mr Justice Michael Quinn, who said he was satisfied Mr Heagney had not acted responsibly in the affairs of the company, said the coffee shop stall operated under a lease taken out in 2013.

Mr Heagney had signed that lease for the benefit of his then girlfriend who was for a short time the owner of Adalbert, the judge said.

When he became a director of the company in September 2016, he took over the running of the coffee shop.

By May 2017, the landlord took back the premises after nearly six months of unpaid rent.

When the liquidator examined the company books he was satisfied it had been unable to pay its debts from November 2017, a month before it stopped paying rent, and was trading while insolvent.

Company returns

The liquidator said Mr Heagney failed to make company returns for 2017 and 2018, failed to make tax returns for those years and failed to maintain proper books and records. He also failed to file a complete statement of his financial affairs after the liquidation as required by the court.

Mr Heagney disputed these claims and said he had made efforts to file company returns upon becoming a director of Adalbert. He had been unable to get full books because they had been in the premises when the landlord re-entered.

The landlord said he disposed of assets and records he found due to mounting storage costs after several requests to Mr Heagney to remove his possessions were ignored.

Mr Justice Quinn found he failed to file a satisfactory statement of affairs and failed to file Revenue returns or to maintain proper books.

He also failed to take steps to implement a winding up of the company for at least a year after it became insolvent and failed to reasonably cooperate with the liquidator.

The judge noted that in the spectrum of gravity of these types of cases, it was “at the lower end” in terms of the scale of trade, indebtedness and the conduct of Mr Heagney.