A provisional liquidator has been appointed to the company behind well-known Dublin restaurant The Green Hen, which the courts have been told has run up substantial tax debts and is insolvent.
An application for the winding up of the company, Chequer Catering Ltd, which has 36 employees and a deficit of €1.8 million, is to be made in January.
The company, which is owned by restaurateur and publican Frank Gleeson, formerly a shareholder in the Mercantile Group, was placed in liquidation by Mr Justice Brian Cregan on the application of the Revenue Commissioners.
Dermot Cahill SC, with Arthur Cunningham BL, told the court an interim examiner had been appointed to the company last week by the Circuit Court, but the company had now withdrawn its application for court protection.
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The directors of the company are Mr Gleeson and Ciara Fox, the court was told, and it had VAT, PAYE, and corporation tax debts totalling €751,266 going back to 2020. No VAT or PAYE had been paid this year.
Mr Justice Cregan appointed Myles Kirby, of Kirby Healy Chartered Accountants, as interim examiner.
Earlier Ross Gorman BL, for the company, told Judge John O’Connor in the Dublin Circuit Court that Chequer Catering was withdrawing its application for the company to be placed in examinership.
Stephen Brady BL, for the interim examiner Dessie Morrow of Azets, said that since Mr Morrow’s appointment last week he had been exploring the possibility that the restaurant business, which has 36 employees, could be saved and had received eight expressions of interest.
The examiner had seen the affidavit submitted by the Revenue and it gave rise to “significant concerns”, he said. If the matter had continued before the court his client might have called on the powers of the court to order an investigation of the company’s affairs.
An affidavit filed on behalf of Revenue said the company has not had a liquor licence since September 2022 but its creditors include several wine suppliers.
The Revenue’s excise enforcement team seized alcohol from the company in November of this year and test purchases by the Revenue in February and November of this year had discovered the restaurant was still selling alcohol.
A sheriff appointed on behalf of Revenue had been attending the premises and had seized tens of thousands of euro in takings on various dates, according to the affidavit.
The company, and director Ciara Fox, had been served with a summons by the Director of Public Prosecutions alleging that, in February of this year, they had sold alcohol, “to wit, rum and wine”, at the Green Hen when it did not have a licence.
The matter is to be mentioned in the Dublin District Court in January, according to the affidavit.
Revenue also said that nine separate “phased payment” arrangements had been made with the company or sought by the company, going back to 2020, but had not resolved the situation. The sheriff had visited the premises on a number of occasions and had also taken control of the company’s bank account.
He said Mr Morrow would be happy to engage with any liquidator that might be appointed in an application he understood was to made to the High Court.
When the interim examiner was appointed last week, the court was told the company’s largest creditors were a connected party and Revenue.
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