By: Michael O’FarrellÂ
Investigations Editor
BEVERLEY FLYNN is rumoured to be considering a return to politics, but an investigation into the family businesses has revealed further controversy facing the former TD.
Her partner, Nama developer Tony Gaughan (pictured right) transferred and sold assets worth millions of euro in Spain, Poland and Ireland before going bankrupt in the UK last September.
One of the assets transferred in recent years is a house in Castlebar in which Ms Flynn runs a creche – a business already made controversial by a series of tax and planning disputes while being run by her sister Audrey. Ownership of the house has since been transferred to the couple’s daughter and Audrey no longer runs the creche. It is unclear when the transfer took place but Audrey was pursued earlier this year by the Revenue Commissioners for tens of thousands in unpaid tax relating to the business.
However, Beverley has just successfully applied for a publicly funded grant to extend the creche, which her lawyer has stated is a completely tax compliant business.
The Irish Mail on Sunday has learned that Beverley’s property developer partner Tony Gaughan has become the latest prominent Nama developer to declare himself bankrupt in the UK.
Prior to the bankruptcy a number of Mr Gaughan’s company and personal assets were sold or transferred to new owners – one of whom is the couple’s schoolgirl daughter Caoilinn Gaughan.
The ownership changes mean the assets – which include the creche, a €2m Spanish villa and a lucrative property company in Poland – may no longer be available to help repay the millions of euro Mr Gaughan owes to creditors such as Nama.
Last night Nama said it could not comment when asked if it had authorised the transfers and whether they had resulted in any outstanding debts being repaid by Mr Gaughan.
But 10 days ago the agency appointed receivers to Mr Gaughan’s Irish company, TJ Gaughan Construction Ltd, in a bid to recover unpaid debts associated with a string of outstanding AIB loans. It is Nama’s stated policy to appoint receivers only as a last resort when all other efforts to work with a debtor have been exhausted.
Nama published its reasons for appointing receivers in the most recent edition of Iris Oifigiúil, the State gazette, citing six AIB loans or guarantees dating from 1993 to 2007. These are secured on a series of Mayo sites and a “letter of guarantee in the sum of €3million”. Mr Gaughan filed for bankruptcy in Bristol on September 10, 2013.
Surprisingly, news of the bankruptcy of the man who was once Castlebar’s richest resident is not known in the town where Beverley Flynn and her two children with Mr Gaughan continue to live in the family home.
Political sources say Ms Flynn is moving behind the scenes to resurrect her political career with Fianna Fáil, unperturbed by her father Pádraig Flynn’s disgrace after he was adjudged corrupt by the Mahon Tribunal in 2012. Her political career was famously derailed by her failed libel case against RTÉ, which had claimed she was involved in aiding clients of National Irish Bank to evade tax through offshore schemes.
Locals commuting to the UK say they have spotted Mr Gaughan on flights between Knock airport and Cardiff, which is near Bristol, in recent times. But he also continues to been seen in Castlebar, where many assumed he was still living.
To qualify for the UK’s fast-track bankruptcy regime, Mr Gaughan must demonstrate that he is living in England and that his main centre of interest is there.
Otherwise the bankruptcy could be overturned and creditors could force him into a longer, three-year bankruptcy in Ireland.
At present Mr Gaughan is scheduled to exit bankruptcy in nine months’ time – in September 2014 – at which point he can go back into business entirely free of his debts.
However, Mr Gaughan’s bankruptcy could be overturned or extended if he is found to have sold or transferred ownership of assets to deliberately keep them out of reach of creditors.
Nama and bankruptcy officials routinely carry out trawls of asset movements as far back as five years prior to bankruptcy and can seek to have any improper transfers reversed.
And today, an extensive MoS investigation can reveal several transactions that will be of intense interest to Mr Gaughan’s creditors.
Before the bankruptcy, one of Mr Gaughan’s Spanish companies, Linda Vista Enterprises, was wound up voluntarily after its assets – beach-side development land and villas – were sold in March and April 2013.
One of those assets was a €2m coastal villa. It was here that the MoS caught up with Pádraig Flynn where he and his wife were staying during the fall-out from the Mahon Tribunal findings last year.
The MoS has also confirmed that a Polish company owned by Mr Gaughan, Emerald Construction and Property Development, was also sold to a new owner earlier this year. The company is building and selling 70 apartments in the Polish city of Lodz. When contacted by the MoS in Warsaw, the new owner, Adam Paszkowski, refused to say how much he paid Mr Gaughan to acquire the asset. But he did confirm that he bought the firm from Mr Gaughan ‘before the summer this year’.
The MoS has also established that, some time prior to June 2012, Mr Gaughan transferred ownership of a property in Castlebar’s Meadow Park estate into the name of his daughter, Caoilinn.
Caolinn’s name appears on a letter in the publicly available planning file for a 2012 planning application on the creche – giving her permission as owner for Beverly’s sister Audrey to apply for planning on the property. When permission was granted, Beverley applied to Pobal for a community childcare grant to fund the project. And this year she received a tax payer-funded grant of €9,675 – the second highest to any creche in Mayo – to complete the extension.
The MoS sent a series of questions to Mr Gaughan and Ms Flynn by registered mail and email this week. We also called the Little Treasures creche and Ms Flynn on her mobile and sent a text when those calls were not answered.
There was no answer at any of the numbers listed for Mr Gaughan’s businesses, except in Poland where a number for his former company was answered by a salesperson.
On December 27, a lawyer representing Beverley Flynn wrote to the MoS but did not answer any of the questions we had posed. In a letter he stated: ‘Our client does not now, nor did she in the past, have any ownership or interest in any of these properties and questions relating to them should be put to Anthony J Gaughan. Our client runs a completely legitimate, tax compliant creche business which is providing employment… and any grants obtained have been granted due to the merits of the business.’ In spite of suggestions Mr Gaughan was in Ireland over Christmas, the MoS also delivered our questions to the listed bankruptcy address of Mr Gaughan in Bristol on December 27. And despite extensive efforts to contact Mr Gaughan in Ireland, the UK and Poland, he has not responded.
How Beverley’s daughter is now the schoolgirl with her very own creche building
IT’S A facility to care for children at their most innocent, but a creche run by the Flynn family is also an extraordinary example of the labyrinthine world inhabited by the controversial political dynasty.
Little Treasures Nursery Creche and Montessori was set up by Audrey Flynn, sister of Beverley, prior to 2003 in a premises owned by Beverley’s partner Tony Gaughan.
Mr Gaughan’s firm – TJ Gaughan Construction Ltd – was listed as the owner of this property in records dating back to 2003 when Audrey Flynn first applied to Mayo County Council for retention of the creche, which she had already opened without adequate planning permission.
But now following some €40,000 in judgments against her by the Revenue related to the business, Audrey Flynn no longer owns the lucrative enterprise. And Mr Gaughan – now a bankrupt – no longer owns the building housing the childcare facility either.
Instead a new company owned by Beverley is running the venture – and ownership of the building itself has been transferred to her schoolgirl daughter with Mr Gaughan.
Beverley established a new limited company to run the Little Treasures creche in February 2012. The company, Young Meadow Ltd, is 100% owned by Beverley although Mr Gaughan was also a director for the first two months.
The firm used to set up the company was Pearse Trust Ltd, which specialises in establishing trust structures in off shore locations such as the Seychelles.
In June 2012 a planning application for an extension to the creche was filed in the name of Audrey Flynn – even though she now no longer had any ownership stake in the business.
The planning file confirms that Beverley and Tony Gaughan’s daughter Caoilinn is now the owner of the property from which the creche is run.
The change of ownership is confirmed in a letter from Caoilinn, herself, despite the fact she is minor.
It’s unclear when exactly she became owner of the property. Dated June 26, 2012 the letter reads: ‘I Caoilinn Gaughan as owner of the above property, represented by my mother, Beverley Flynn authorise Ms Audrey Flynn to apply for full planning permission for the extension of a creche facility at the above property,’
The file also contains a second letter from the architect on July 6, 2012. ‘This letter is to clarify that Ms Caoilinn Gaughan is a minor and owns the above property and therefor her mother as her legal guardian authorised the planning application at the above address on her behalf.’
With planning for the extension granted, Beverley applied for a community childcare grant to fund the project. This year she received a taxpayer-funded grant of €9,675 to complete the extension.
