Pamela Flood, Ronan Ryan avoid immediate loss of home after court appeal

Ronan Ryan, husband of former Miss Ireland and TV presenter Pamela Flood, has won his High Court appeal over a decision allowing a financial fund to execute a possession order for the couple's home in Clontarf.

Mr Ryan opposed execution of the possession order because he had obtained a protective certificate giving him a period of protection from his creditors as part of his application for a personal insolvency arrangement (PIA).

His appeal was against a Circuit Court decision last August allowing Tanager DAC to enforce possession of the home of the couple and their four young children at Mount Prospect Avenue.

In a judgment on Monday, Mr Justice Garrett Simons said Mr Ryan was entitled to avail of the protective certificate which "continues in force".

The judge said he would not allow Tanager to enforce an order for possession of the couple’s home or to sell the €900,000 property and he would set aside the Circuit Court decision in favour of Tanager.

Mr Ryan, a well-known restaurateur, has a €1.2m mortgage debt on the property.

Ms Flood was a notice party to the proceedings.

Mr Ryan had consented last March to the making of an order for possession in respect of the house in favour of Tanager, subject to a four-month stay on execution of that order.

The house was to have been vacated by July 9th but Tanager claimed the couple and their family did not leave.

Instead, Mr Ryan brought proceedings under the Personal Insolvency Act and obtained a protective certificate from the Circuit Court in late June.

The certificate prevented Tanager from executing the possession order against the couple’s home pending the determination of the application for a PIA.

Tanager, which acquired the loan Mr Ryan took out on the property, opposed the appeal and had argued it was fundamentally unfair if the existence of the protective certificate was allowed to derail its order for possession.

It argued Mr Ryan should not be allowed to go behind the consent order made in March and that Mr Ryan’s conduct in seeking a protective certificate represented an abuse of process.

Mr Ryan, it argued, had failed to disclose the existence of the possession order when seeking the protective certificate.

Mr Ryan, represented by Keith Farry BL, instructed by solicitor Eugene Carley, argued there had been no material non-disclosure by him.

Despite the existence of the possession order, Mr Ryan met the eligibility criteria for a protective certificate, it was argued.

Possession order

In his ruling, Mr Justice Simons said, while it was unsatisfactory the existence of the possession order was not disclosed to the Circuit Court, the omission did not constitute a material non-disclosure.

The existence of the possession order would not have affected the outcome of the application for a protective certificate, he said.

The possession order is not a bar to the restructuring of secured debt by way of an insolvency arrangement, he also said.

The fact Tanager has the benefit of an unexecuted order for possession does not preclude the possibility of the restructuring of debts as envisaged under personal insolvency laws, he said.

Mr Ryan, the judge added, met the eligibility criteria for the protective certificate.

The Personal Insolvency Act makes special provisions for debtors’ principal private residence and allows for the possibility of courts approving measures to allow debtors to keep their homes, he noted.

The house in Clontarf is occupied by Mr Ryan, Ms Flood and four minor children, he said.

It would be “disproportionate” to sanction Mr Ryan over the non-disclosure and allow Tanager to enforce its security before the application for a PIA had been determined.

He expected there may well be cases where the protective certificates will be set aside due to material non-disclosure but it would undermine the objective of insolvency legislation if creditors were routinely to make applications seeking to set aside orders based on inaccuracies or omissions which are “immaterial”.

A proliferation of such applications would, he said, take up scarce court time and ultimately delay the final determination of the insolvency process.

The Personal Insolvency Act provides ample safeguards for creditors at the stage of application to confirm or approve a personal insolvency arrangement, he said.

Such protections will, in most cases, make a separate application to set aside a protective certificate unnecessary, he added.

The judge has adjourned the matter to next week to allow the parties to fully consider his decision.