A date for hearing legal issues concerning an application by the State to confiscate about £300,000 in cash and assets from three jailed members of the Felloni family is to be set at the end of the week by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Judge Kieran O'Connor directed that a preliminary hearing be held on Friday so that a schedule of the legal issues to be decided in the case can be drawn up. A date for the full hearing will then be arranged. "This matter has been dragging on for some time now and I want to bring it to finality," Judge O'Connor said.
Mr Peter Charleton SC, for the State, told Judge O'Connor that the High Court had ordered the provision of free legal aid to pay the costs of the Fellonis' legal advisers. The State originally applied early last year to confiscate £134,000 in cash and a house in Finglas valued at £46,500 under the provisions of Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1994.
Judge O'Connor was told at a hearing in November that a further £115,000 sterling in bank accounts allegedly held by two members of the Felloni family had been frozen by the High Courts in Belfast and London.
Mr Shane Murphy, for the State, told Judge O'Connor at that hearing that he could also take the existence of these accounts in the names of Anthony Felloni and his daughter, Regina, into consideration.
It is alleged that all these assets are the proceeds of illegal drugdealing by the three jailed Felloni family members, who are opposing the application. This is the first such application to be opposed since the Act came into operation.
Tony Felloni (53), of Lower Dominick Street, Dublin, is serving a total of 20 years in prison for heroin-dealing offences. His daughter, Regina, is serving six years and nine months, and his son, Luigi, six years for similar offences.
Mr Blaise O'Carroll SC, for the Fellonis, told the court last year he would be requiring "strict proofs" of all the details concerning his clients as well as clarification of whether the application was a civil or criminal hearing.