A GALWAY solicitor, a Fine Gael councillor, a top jockey and a strip club manageress were among those named and shamed in the latest tax defaulters’ list.
Solicitor Barry Fitzgerald of Forster Street, Galway, topped the Revenue settlement list published yesterday. Mr Fitzgerald paid a total of €2.56 million arising from undeclared income tax, capital gains tax (CGT) and VAT.
Fine Gael councillor Anne Devitt was among the high-profile defaulters to make the list. Ms Devitt paid €50,000 in settlement of undeclared income tax and CGT, and interest and accumulated penalties.
“Our understanding is that it was an oversight that has been fully resolved,” a Fine Gael spokeswoman said yesterday.
In 2006, the Swords-based councillor faced questioning at the Mahon tribunal over the receipt of a number of controversial consultancy payments.
Meanwhile, 29-year-old jockey Jamie Spencer made a settlement totalling €102,855 in respect of undeclared CGT.
A Tipperary native, Mr Spencer is based in Newmarket, Suffolk and rides mainly in Britain, where he has been crowned champion flat jockey twice.
He has spent most of his career in Britain, but spent the 2004 flat season in Ireland as stable jockey to Aidan O’Brien, who trains at Coolmore Stud.
Lap dancing club manageress Mary Cullen, who runs Strings strip club on Leeson Street, paid €261,736 in settlement of under-declared VAT and PAYE/PRSI.
In 2003 Ms Cullen was granted bail of €100,000 when she appeared in court charged with failing to make tax returns. A year later, she faced charges of employing lap dancers illegally.
Also on the list was Belfast-born businessman Paul McGlade (54), who made a settlement of more than €1 million in respect of undeclared CGT.
Mr McGlade, whose current address is on Dublin’s Merrion Street, set up Champion Sports in the 1990s, and sold his share in the company for a reported €35 million a decade later.
His other business interests have ranged from Ely Medical Group to the Optilase eye laser surgery clinics. Other ventures in which he has been involved in the past include Schuh, and the Wagamama and Captain America’s restaurants.
The tax defaulters’ list, which relates to settlements made between April and the end of June, also included a settlement arising from the Ansbacher Bank controversy. Neil Collins, a financial consultant with an address in Ardmore, Co Waterford, paid €80,000 in tax, interest and penalties as a result of the Revenue Ansbacher investigation.