By: Michael O’Farrell
Investigations Editor
THE secret buyer of a Spanish property, sold by Our Lady’s Hospice for a fraction of its value, is a ‘family friend’ of the charity’s sacked financial director.
The Irish Mail on Sunday can today reveal that Mayo native Michael ‘Mitch’ Egan is the person who incorporated a secret New York company used to buy the hospice’s Spanish asset – at a loss of €300,000 to the publicly-funded Harold’s Cross charity.
Mr Egan is from Bunaneraghtish, a tiny townland in the Mayo parish of Ardagh, though he has also lived in New York.
He is a friend of the family of Denis Maguire, the sacked hospice financial director who signed off on the controversial loss-making sale. The Spanish sale has been the subject of a Garda fraud squad investigation for years, though no charges have been brought.
Contacted repeatedly by the MoS in recent weeks, Mr Egan and his family have refused to comment. Mr Maguire has refused to answer questions about any relationship he may have with Mr Egan.
But the MoS can today reveal that Mr Egan knows Denis Maguire and his brother John, according to Mr Egan’s own brother.
Michael ‘Mitch’ Egan is also part of a network of close Mayo contemporaries that link back to the Yonkers address used to register the secret New York company, Sun Orange Properties.
Both he and Mr Maguire are now being sued by the hospice, and though no date has been set for a hearing, the hospice has registered lis pendens – literally notice of a pending legal action – against Mr Maguire and Mr Egan.
The move will hamper both men from disposing of property since the lis pendens would appear during any pre-sale conveyancing checks.
According to Spanish property records, the house at the heart of the case – No.14 Aloha Lake Village – was purchased by Irish woman Agnes Phelan for €364,000 in 2004.
Mrs Phelan left the home to the hospice when she died in October 2008 and it should have resulted in a significant windfall to the publicly funded charity when sold.
In a gated community, close to Marbella, in the hills above the luxury Puerto Banus marina, Aloha Lake Village boasts three communal swimming pools and is surrounded by several golf courses.
But instead of realising a profit from the property, the hospice took five-and a-half years to sell it – and ended up selling it for so little that the charity lost €32,203.
The loss was incurred because, in the half decade it took to sell the home for just €37,500, Our Lady’s Hospice had already paid out €69,703 in management fees and other bills, often without adequate invoices to back up the payments.
As Head of Finance at the Dublinbased hospice, Denis Maguire was responsible for overseeing the sale.
In the half decade that the hospice retained the home, Mr Maguire travelled to Spain on expenses six times, incurring bills of €3,620.
His wife, Deirdre, accompanied him on five of these trips but the couple paid for her flights themselves.
The majority of these expenses cheques were signed off by Mr Maguire himself and the then head of HR, Audrey Houlihan, who has now become CEO.
As Head of Finance, Mr Maguire was made company secretary of the hospice’s corporate entity, Our Lady’s Hospice & Care Services Ltd in 2005.
He was dismissed for ‘serious misconduct’ and ‘serious negligence’ in September 2016 after an independent investigation and an internal disciplinary procedure.
He has since been arrested and questioned by gardaà investigating the sale. The hospice receives around €25m from the HSE every year, as well as millions of euro more from public fundraising, donations and bequests.
The sale of the Spanish property became the focus of a HSE audit after a whistleblower expressed concerns about financial affairs at the hospice a number of years ago.
That audit found that the Aloha Lake Village home had never been placed on the open market by the hospice, resulting in ‘a perceived unfair advantage or closed opportunity to the buyer’.
According to the audit, there was ‘no independent valuation sought at any time’ for the Spanish property and there was ‘no evidence of business planning for the expenditure’ incurred.
The audit concluded: ‘The property was neither sold at market value nor was it made available on the open market and therefore lacks transparency and may be perceived as failing the arms-length test and significantly reducing funds available to OLH.’
As a result, the hospice has now implemented a conflict-of-interest register for all executives and staff.
A spokeswoman for the hospice said this week: ‘As this matter has already been in the public domain and is subject to Garda investigation, we are unable to comment any further at this time.’
In previous statements the hospice has apologised for its failure to have adequate financial controls in place and said these inadequacies have now been addressed.
Chasing the illusive ‘Mitch’ Egan
MAKING the connection between Denis Maguire, his brother John and Mitch/Michael Egan required a number of conversations over recent weeks.
Here are three, from this week, that confirm the connection.
WEDNESDAY JUNE 12 – 4.15PM. At the Rathgar home of Denis Maguire’s brother, John, who is Facebook friends with Mitch Egan.
Denis Maguire’s adult nephew, Aidan, answers the door, saying his father is away.
I tell him I’m writing a story for this Sunday involving family friend Mitch Egan – a name that Aidan immediately recognises.
‘Mitch Egan. Do you know the guy I’m talking about?’ ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Aidan responds, nodding.
‘Mitch from Bunaneraghtish, in Co. Mayo,’ I clarify. ‘You know the guy I’m taking about?’ ‘Yeah,’ he confirms again.
I tell Aidan the fact that Mitch Egan is a family friend of his father and his uncle Denis is important in the context of the below-value controversial sale of the hospice’s Spanish property – and this will be in the Mail on Sunday this weekend.
Aidan says he doesn’t know much about his father’s or his uncle’s business but agrees to immediately contact his father about the matter.
WEDNESDAY JUNE 12TH – 9.50PM. At the Egan family home in Bunaneraghtish, Knockanillaun, Co Mayo.
The hospice has registered a pending legal action against Michael Egan (aka Mitch) at this address. I talk to his brother Padraic.
‘I don’t know nothing,’ he says repeatedly before we even begin to speak. Then he agrees to listen.
‘Say what you have to say and goodbye.’
I tell him we’ll be publishing a story on Mitch’s involvement with Denis Maguire and the sale of a belowvalue hospice property in Spain.
I ask about Mitch and his links to Denis Maguire, suggesting that perhaps the Egans and the Maguires know each other through horses.
‘No, it’s not through horses,’ he replies. ‘It’s sport horses I have. They’d be into probably thoroughbreds.’
‘You know the Maguires I’m talking about – right?’
‘I heard of them,’ he responds. ‘I heard him talking about them. I don’t know them. I’m here all me life. I was never up in Dublin.’
He agrees to contact Mitch. ‘I’ll tell him I was talking to you. If he wants to ring you, that’s entirely up to himself.’
THURSDAY JUNE 13TH – 3.04PM. Bernard Egan – a brother of Mitch – answers his mobile.
‘You don’t know Denis Maguire at all Bernard – do you?’ I ask.
‘Who?’
‘Denis Maguire.’
‘Denis – I do yeah. I don’t know him that well. My brother knows him. Denis – yeah.’
‘From Glencullen up in Wicklow.’
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
‘And Mitch is your brother, right?’
‘That’s right, yeah.’
I explain our story to Bernard, who agrees to contact Mitch.
Mitch Egan has not responded to repeated voice and text messages from the MoS to his mobile. He also ignored messages left with third parties at his Dublin and Mayo addresses and his regular pubs in Ballina. Registered letters to his Mayo and Dublin addresses were unanswered, but were signed for. Denis Maguire did not respond to voice and text messages to his mobile and direct emails this week. Calls and emails to his lawyer also went unanswered.
John Maguire did not respond to our query after we spoke with his son at his home.
