Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

Yes. This man and wife were subjected to a very serious assault by their neighbour and the Director of Public Prosecutions decided not to prosecute because he said there was not enough evidence. We took a civil action against the neighbour in which I acted for the couple and succeeded in the Circuit Court in getting judgment against the neighbour for $5,000 and £2,500, which was a lot of money 25 years ago. He refused to pay and we went through the entire system of instalment orders, committal orders and so on but he evaded them. Given that he had a house, and I accept in many of these cases people are in local in local authority houses and, therefore, this case does not apply, I decided to register the judgment as a mortgage against the house of the assailant. We could have moved for an order for sale, and Deputy Flanagan would know the procedure, but we decided not to do that as the couple emigrated back to Canada because they were so traumatised by the assault.

Fifteen or 20 years later I got a telephone call from a solicitor in Dundalk who was in an office closing the sale of this particular house and when they did their searches they found that not only was there a mortgage with a building society, but there was also a judgment mortgage registered against it and no one knew what this was about. The sale could not go ahead that day and I had to make contact with the Canadian couple, who I had great difficulty contacting because they had moved back to Canada, but I was delighted to locate them eventually through various sources and to be able to tell them that not only would they get their £7,500 but they would get 20 years interest at 11%. If my memory serves me correctly, they got approximately £17,500. It was one of those cases one takes a lot of sweetness from in terms of people getting what they deserve. There are many opportunities for a creditor and in terms of that judgment mortgage issue, in the aftermath of the Celtic tiger many people would have additional property. Perhaps that is something that should be used.

On the maintenance orders before the courts, many of those cases were adjourned because they would have been awaiting the passage of legislation. That is the reason there is an imperative in regard to this Bill. There is no one in prison currently in regard to maintenance orders that we are aware of. I believe the courts are waiting for us to pass this legislation and, therefore, the sooner we pass it, the better. I thank the Deputies for their contributions.

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