THE director of an international recruitment company, Head Hunt Ltd, transferred her new Dublin home to her daughter, a fellow director, within months of a judgment having been granted against her, the Circuit Civil Court has been told.
Ms Sylvia Harrison, who said she now lives with her father in Dangan Drive, Kimmage, Dublin told Judge Diarmuid Sheridan she and her daughter, Aisling, were co directors of Head Hunt Ltd.
In the early 1980s she had retained builders S.H. Ltd, now bin liquidation, to build a house for her at 4 Auburn Villas, Rathgar Road, Dublin. Following a dispute and legal proceedings, a judgment for £10,000 and interest had been given against her.
Solicitors Maurice Leahy & Co, for the official liquidator, had brought Ms Harrison before the court for a judicial examination of her circumstances in aid of the judgment which, she admitted, had never been paid.
She told Mr Dominic Hussey, counsel for the liquidator, she had not been in a position to pay the judgment granted against her in January 1988. Six months later she had conveyed the new house to her daughter for £10,000, but had to use this money to pay bills.
Mr Hussey said an application was now being brought to set aside the conveyance of the house to her daughter.
Ms Harrison said she gets a weekly salary of £302 into her hand from Head Hunt, Harcourt Street, Dublin, but she had to support a daughter at boarding school because she worked such long hours. She could afford to pay only a couple of pounds a week off the judgment.
When she said she did not think Head Hunt Ltd had any assets, Mr Hussey asked if she knew of a company called Bridge Cove Investments Ltd. She said she was a director and shareholder with her daughter in Bridge Cove Investments, which had returned fixed assets of £484,911 in accounts lodged with the Companies Office.
Ms Harrison said this company, too, had been in difficulties, and she did not draw a salary from it. Her other company, Head Hunt Ltd, paid Bridge Cove Investments £45,000 a year rent for use of its building in Harcourt Street, but this went towards paying the building's mortgage.
When Judge Sheridan told her if did not strike him she was in difficult circumstances at the moment, Ms Harrison said that if she did not have her building, her business would not function. Judge Sheridan told her all the plaintiffs had to do was register a judgment mortgage against her interests in the building and commence bankruptcy proceedings, which would be disastrous.
Judge Sheridan said his function was only to oversee the financial examination of Ms Harrison as to liquidator Mr Eamon Leahy ascertaining her personal assets. He adjourned the matter generally and reserved costs.