Back on site, the firetrap builder

Michael O’Farrell

Investigations Editor

THE builder behind the ‘firetrap’ housing estate in Kildare, where six houses burned to the ground in under 30 minutes, transferred €1.2m to his family and associates when he was made bankrupt in 2011.

Paddy Byrne, whose company Barrack Homes built the Millfield Manor estate in Newbridge, went bankrupt in Britain in 2011 with debts of €100m. He is one of only two Irish developers barred by the UK Insolvency Service from being a director of a company for 10 years.

The €100m debts included Nama loans that were originally from AIB. Now the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal that he is back at work again and helping to build houses for a new company owned by his sister.

On March 31, the Millfield Manor estate in Newbridge was the scene of a devastating fire in which six terraced houses were destroyed in less than half an hour.

Since then, separate engineers’ reports were commissioned by residents and Kildare County Council.

As recently as June 10, our sister paper, the Irish Daily Mail, revealed that the residents’ report had condemned fire-safety standards at the estate.

That report, by registered engineer Thomas English, found ‘major and life-threatening serious shortfalls and discrepancies and deviations from the minimum requirements of the national mandatory building regulations’.

It is not the first investigation of which Mr Byrne has fallen foul. An inquiry by the Insolvency Service in the UK revealed that he had sent €500,000 from a National Irish Bank account to his ex-wife, claiming this was a settlement to release him from any financial obligations to the marital home.

He also transferred €500,000 to the niece of a business associate, claiming this was a repayment of a loan, and he transferred €114,000 to his sister and €82,800 to a solicitor.

Because of this – and his failure to declare a house in the UK he owned – Mr Byrne is one of only two Irish developers who have been punished by the British authorities for filing false bankruptcy petitions.

In May 2013, Mr Byrne admitted his deception and accepted a nine-year extension to the oneyear restrictions normally applied to bankrupts. As a result, he is now banned from becoming a company director and from acting as a shadow director of any UK company until May 2022.

The Insolvency Service’s Allan Mitchell said: ‘They thought they could wipe these debts out in a year and move on. They transferred money to friends, relatives and associates – anyone but their creditors.’ But an MoS investigation can now link Mr Byrne to a development built by a company that is run by his sister and that operates out of the same depot as Barrack Homes did.

In December 2012, his sister, Joan, established a new propertydevelopment company using her married name, Joan Murphy.

Called Victoria Homes Ltd, the firm operates from Thomastown, Co. Kildare, and is now completing a development called Grange Hill in Rathfarnham in Dublin’s southside.

Four- and five-bed houses are already on sale at prices that range between €575,000 and €755,000, while further phases are still being built.

The website for the development states that ‘Victoria Homes is owned and managed by a team with in excess of 30 years’ experience in house building and property development’.

It says: ‘Victoria Homes Ltd have quickly forged an excellent reputation for building quality homes, built in a traditional style yet boasting all contemporary features all discerning purchasers demand.’

Although Joan Byrne/Murphy was a director of her brother’s Barrack Homes for just a week in 2011, she is known among those who have worked with her as a capable manager in the construction industry. Renowned in the past as an interior designer, she has never before been to the forefront of development projects to the extent that she now is at Victoria Homes.

The other owner and director of Victoria Homes – listed as a Patrick Murphy, with an address at Joan Byrne’s home – does not appear to have held previous directorships.

In its first and only set of filed accounts to date, Victoria Homes reported a gross profit of €119,000 and over €1m of ‘work in progress’ to the end of December 2013.

In addition to the Grange Hill development, Victoria Homes has applied for planning permission for a number of other developments in Dublin.

After receiving a tip-off, the MoS visited the Grange Hill development and photographed Mr Byrne coming and going from the site regularly over a period of weeks. He was observed staying whole days on site, and was among the last to leave after the site was locked up. He appeared to be directing work on the site.

Driving a luxury 2014 Range Rover Vogue worth in excess of €100,000, Mr Byrne appeared to be living at Ballinrahin House, close to Rathangan on the border of Offaly and Kildare.

The home is a luxury build on 26 acres of stud-railed paddocks with six stables and a 1.3km tree-lined avenue behind electric gates.

The property was on sale for €2.8m in 2009 but land registry records confirm that in November 2014 it was sold to Victoria Homes for a knockdown price of €484,000.

The MoS observed Mr Byrne coming and going from Ballinrahin House in recent weeks. Recently, we waited at the gate of the country residence to speak to him about his role at Victoria Homes.

However, when he saw us waiting, Mr Byrne declined to be questioned. Instead we left a note with our questions in the mailbox.

A mobile number pinned to the buzzer of the gate was answered by a woman who said she was renting the property and did not know Mr Byrne at all.

Mr Byrne’s sister Joan also declined to comment. ‘I don’t think it’s anything to do with you, what I do,’ she said when she was asked about Victoria Homes and her brother’s apparent role in the company. ‘My business has got absolutely nothing to do with you,’ she repeated when asked if her brother was a shadow director of Victoria Homes.

Ms Byrne also declined to comment when asked if she was the sister to whom Mr Byrne sent money prior to going bankrupt.

Asked about Mr Byrne’s Range Rover, parked in the drive, she said: ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business whose car that is.’ In addition to being a director and part owner of Victoria Homes Ltd, Ms Byrne is also a director of a number of other construction and property-related companies. At least one of these is planning a property development in Dublin.

Documents submitted to the Companies Registration Office show Ms Byrne alternates between using her maiden and married names.