AIB: Couple failed to pay bank from sale proceeds

A couple who owned a famous Galway pub-restaurant have spent €900,000 on living expenses from the proceeds of property sales and have not used any of it to pay off a debt to a bank of nearly €20m, a court has heard.

William and Sheila Moran, who owned Moran’s On the Weir in Kilcogan, must answer questions about their expenditure in the next two weeks as part of AIB’s bid to recover the €20m, Mr Justice John Hedigan said in the commercial court yesterday.

AIB obtained judgement against them in 2012 arising out of default on loans for property investment.

However, despite selling unencumbered property assets since then, including the Kilcogan pub for €2.8m, none has been used to reduce their debt to AIB, it is claimed. AIB’s financial solutions group manager Bernard Caroll said in an affidavit that the €2.8m came from the pub sale (€1.5m), an apartment (€943,000), and the sale of loan rights (€370,000) in a Polish firm called Grudnia.

Some of it was used to pay the Revenue Commissioners (€415,000) and the Morans’ advisors (€211,000), leaving around €2.26m available to them. The bank has learned that, from November 2011 to December 2014, €900,000 was withdrawn from their Bank of Ireland account, representing an average monthly expenditure of €24,000.

Of this, around €250,000 was paid for “future educational expenses and living expenses” of three of their children, including €60,000 to Brian Moran, 18, while William Moran, 14, received two payments totalling €65,000 in January and February 2012, Mr Carroll says.

A solicitor for the couple said Mr Moran is seriously ill and that questions posed by AIB had been answered.

Mr Justice Hedigan put the matter back for a fortnight.