As a result of becoming mired in financial and legal controversy, Clonmannon retirement village in Co Wicklow had come to be known as "one of the great social engineering disasters of our time", a High Court judge said. Mr Justice Kearns yesterday demised an action by six residents of the village against its former operators. The residents had disputed the right of the operators to vary a care contract and had sought damages.
The judge said it was difficult not to feel sympathy with all sides to "this tragic dispute, which has added another lengthy chapter to the litany of misfortunes" affecting the village.
The action was taken by Martha Honiball, Anne Kelly, Mary Illingworth, Liam S. Furlong, Aileen Dempsey and Kathleen Foley. Ms Foley died in January. The residents had sued Jane and Roderick McGrath and MacEnterprises. Between March 1996 and September 1999, Mr and Mrs McGrath were the operators and owners of the village, near Ashford. MacEnterprises was nominated by the McGraths to operate it.
The village was established in 1984 by previous owners. The McGraths bought it for £270,000 and sold it to Tara Court Properties Ltd for £1.5 million. They now live elsewhere although, Mr Justice Kearns said yesterday, Mrs McGrath will apparently remain on, discharging managerial duties.
In dismissing the action, Mr Justice Kearns allowed costs of the five-day hearing - expected to run into tens of thousands of pounds - to the McGraths.
The plaintiffs claimed the McGraths were not entitled to introduce variations to the original care contract. The defence denied the claims.
In his reserved judgment, the judge said the initial years in Clonmannon were full of promise and happiness for the residents and the evidence he had heard confirmed this. "However, this rural idyll was, over the ensuing years, to become mired in financial and legal controversy."
Against an appalling financial and legal backdrop, one might reasonably assume no private purchaser would ever have come forward to take on such a daunting challenge, the judge said. Yet that was what did occur in March 1996 when the McGraths signed a contract to purchase the village.
Following consultation with her accountants, Mrs McGrath determined the original care contracts were not financially viable.