Noel O’Gara, the businessman and ground rent speculator from Ballinahown, will get a “priority hearing” on January 16 when he next appears to answer the nine breaches of corporate law with which he is charged.
O’Gara was before a special sitting of Athlone District Court on Monday (December 15 ) charged with auditing four companies while being disqualified to do so.
The charges are being brought by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE ), which was represented in court by two executive officers, and barrister, Mr Remy Farrell SC.
Judge Conal Gibbons, with a sizeable list of cases in front of him, decided to put back hearing the facts of this one until the new year after Mr Farrell told the court the case would take “about an hour” to be heard.
O’Gara, who continued in his practice of representing himself at the short hearing, is pleading not guilty.
Three of the companies he is accused of auditing - Ballinahown Development Company, Granite Tiles Ltd, and O’Gara Estates Limited - are registered to his address at Ballinahown Court, Ballinahown..
The fourth company - Sportico Sportswear Ltd - has an office registered at 32 Pearse Square, Dublin 2, a residential area.
O’Gara is charged with a breach S187 (vi ) of the Companies Act 1990 by performing an audit on a company for which (a ) one lacks the appropriate qualification to do so or (b ) one is too closely associated with.
The ODCE annually publish seven information booklets dealing with the principal duties and powers of companies and all their officers - directors, secretaries, shareholders, auditors, creditors, liquidators, receivers and examiners.
These booklets are brought out to help make the complex provisions of company law more readily understandable to a non-professional audience and can be accessed on its website www.odce.ie O’Gara came to national notoriety two years ago when he bought up the leasehold of a leafy square in Ranelagh in Dublin from under the noses of Dublin City Council for less than €10,000 and then closed it to the public to much uproar.
A compulsory purchase order was put on it by the Council and a High Court injunction had to stop him from turning it into a car park.
He was quoted as saying he would take €65m from the Council for its return to public ownership, whilst actively trying to turn it into a car park, and a tile showroom. Proceedings there are ongoing.
