Conrad Gallagher may save restaurant company

Restaurateur Mr Conrad Gallagher has been given another chance by the High Court to save his restaurant company, Etonstar Ltd…

Restaurateur Mr Conrad Gallagher has been given another chance by the High Court to save his restaurant company, Etonstar Ltd which runs the Peacock Alley restaurant.

Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan adjourned an application by the Revenue Commissioners to wind up Gallagher's company on the grounds that it had failed to meet its mounting tax liabilities.

Judge Finnegan heard that Gallagher would hand into court a Bank Draft for £32,500 which was just under half of outstanding taxes along with four post dated cheques for £10,000 each to be cashed on a weekly instalment basis by the Commissioners during September.

Judge Finnegan said he was impressed by the fact that no other creditors had joined the petition to wind up the company and that the Commissioners immediately stood to gain by £32,500.

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He said he could well understand the Revenue Commissioners attitude but there were a number of matters he had taken into consideration not least that the company had 28 employees.

Judge Finnegan said he was well aware that in the restaurant trade very often there were no assets to be realized and it would be to the advantage of the Commissioners to immediately benefit by at least the £32,500 bank drafts. He had been told also that Mr Gallagher was prepared to take money out of two of his restaurants in the United Kingdom to help him surmount his problems here.

He said he was prepared to adjourn the petition on the assumption that the four post-dated cheques, handed into court along with the bank drafts, would be honoured but he would grant the Commissioners leave to re-enter their petition within notice of 24 hours in the event of any one of the cheques not being honoured.

Judge Finnegan also added a condition that up-to-date accounts of Mr Gallagher's company be lodged with the Revenue Commissioners on or before October 1st next.

Ms Aoife Goodman, counsel for the Revenue Commissioners, said an order for the winding up of the company on foot of £69,000 tax liabilities had been made in the High Court on July 30th last.

The court had adjourned the matter with leave to re-enter it and Gallagher had presented the Revenue with a series of cheques all of which had been dishonoured almost immediately after the adjournment.

In a sworn affidavit Mr Gallagher, managing director and chief shareholder of Etonstar Ltd, stated that all of the cheques had been presented at one go by the Revenue Commissioners for encashment and he had been forced to stop them as he believed the Revenue was prepared to drop its winding up petition and they were not prepared to do so.

He said he was anxious to resolve his tax affairs which had somewhat slipped due to personal difficulties he had been having and business complications which had also befallen him at the same time.

Mr Gallagher said he was working very hard to try and retrieve his financial position and he was spending a considerable amount of time in the UK opening up two restaurants.

As a result he had been unable to have as much of a "hands on" control of his business fairs as he would have liked to over the last six months.

He said he had now arranged for a substantial amount of funds to be made available for the Revenue Commissioners to be handed over to them in court. It was not true to say that his company could not meet its debts and he did not accept that his tax liability was rising at the rate of £10,000 a month.

Ms Goodman said no tax returns had been made since late last year while the company was continuing to retain VAT as well as PAYE and PRSI from its employees. She said that as a result the State's money of £10,000 a month was being collected by Mr Gallagher and presumably applied by his company to its own purposes.