An apartment in Ballsbridge, Dublin belonging to Jim Nugent, a close associate of former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, has been repossessed by a bank.
Mr Nugent, who told the Mahon tribunal he contributed €2,500 to a “digout” for Mr Ahern in 1993, was chairman of the Central Remedial Clinic until the entire board resigned in December 2013 on foot of the controversy over top-up salary payments to senior staff.
He had earlier been chairman of Cert, the tourism industry training body, and a member of the board of the Central Bank.
Mr Nugent, of Maple 6 in Haseldene, a gated apartment block development off Anglesea Road, and his wife Mary Nugent, also known as Mary T Monaghan, were sued for repossession by KBC Bank Ireland Plc.
Barrister Rudi Neuman Shanahan, in a three-minute hearing in the Circuit Civil Court, said the bank was seeking possession of the property and a firm of solicitors for the Nugents was neither consenting nor objecting to the order being made.
“That allows me to agree on behalf of the bank to a six months stay on the order,” counsel for KBC, of Sandwith Street, Dublin 2, told the court.
Judge Jacqueline Linnane, granting the possession order with the agreed stay on execution, said a loan for €1.3 million had been taken out for a 10-year period in February 2005 and “not one euro” had been paid against it since 2012.
Outstanding sum of €1.7m
When the judge said no sworn affidavit outlining a defence against the bank’s application had been entered, a representative of O’Callaghan Kelly, solicitors for the Nugents, told the court the defendants were neither consenting to, nor opposing, the application.
Judge Linnane said there was €1.7 million outstanding on the overall debt, which included a secondary loan of €160,000 the Nugents had taken out in September 2005.
In December 2007, Mr Nugent told the Mahon tribunal he had no expectation that £2,500, contributed to Mr Ahern for legal expenses in 1993, would ever be returned.
He said he was asked for the money by Mr Ahern’s solicitor Gerry Brennan. He gave it to him in cash in the Berkeley Court Hotel in Ballsbridge. He said the issue was handled sensitively.
“Knowing the man [Mr Ahern] I’d be extra sensitive about it . . . it must have been very difficult for him,” said Mr Nugent.
He said he gave the sum in cash for confidentiality reasons. He kept cash “for paying various bills or wages”. Mr Ahern thanked him for the contribution afterwards and also said that he would repay it at some stage, he said. It was repaid in September 2006.