Dublin woman hears judge refuse lender leave to execute order for possession against her

Ray Managh

A Dublin woman, who brought her 20-year campaign to save her home onto national television, has just heard a judge refuse the lender leave to execute a long-standing order for possession against her.

Ciara O’Reilly, a midwife and mother, of Donnycarney Road, Dublin, had been fighting to save her home since an order for possession in favour of Mars Capital (Ireland) had been granted in the Circuit Civil Court behind her back in November 2023.

Ciara had inadvertently missed the court hearing by a day and had to begin all over again her battle with the bank, including harrowing appeal visits to the High Court to re-state her case.

Judge Gerard Meehan, in a reserved judgment on Monday, decided there had been inordinate and inexcusable delay since 2016 by the lender to act in the execution of its order for re-possession of the O’Reilly home.

He said his court had a discretion as to whether or not it should now grant the bank leave to execute the possession order and he refused its application.

Barrister Rudi Neuman, counsel for the bank, told Judge Meehan his decision brought an end to the matter and no order for costs could be made in the circumstances.

Ms O’Reilly, 48, had gone on a TV3 show, “Evicted at Christmas,” which highlighted her case as well as a number of others facing eviction.

Ciara took sole responsibility for the mortgage following her marriage split with Brendan Proctor, who nevertheless remained on the proceedings as a co-defendant. Since 2007 she had worked with the bank to try to reach a solution on the repayments.

However, the bank pursued Ciara for full possession of her home and she has been served with an eviction notice, which, she had told tv viewers, had a massive impact on her wellbeing.

“I’m quite a robust person," she told the TV3 interviewer. "I found myself in a situation where my mind was actually starting to formulate plans about taking my own life... and just be done with this pain.

"At the same time my rational mind is going; you have a son, you have responsibilities, you have to keep going."

Ciara's heart breaking story was just one of three highlighted several years ago in TV3 programme, Evicted at Christmas.

At the time an estimated 100,000 residential homes were in mortgage arrears in Ireland with 17,000 of them being pursued for repossession in the courts.

Ciara said she felt she was just one of hundreds of people feeling the same way in a crisis that was happening in so many homes across the country.

"People are not sleeping at night. People are highly distressed. Marriages are breaking down and people are in financial dire straits with no recourse. No real recourse. We don’t know what’s going on in people’s homes.

"People tend not to talk about the situation because they feel shame about it. I feel shame about it. I had to tell my son that an eviction order has landed in the post and I feel ashamed that I’ve let him down and the expression on his face really hurt me, to see my son try to hide that from me, to protect me, just makes my heart break.

“He told me that I taught him not to worry about these things so I’m not to worry about it, but I’m still his mother so I’m going to worry."

She added: “Life is fleeting. Because I came close enough to taking my own life in my darkest moments. Life, I’ve learned, is not always supposed to be good and I can’t be buffeted around by every breeze that hits me. Even though it’s a big storm that’s hitting me, I’ve learned that I can cope with these things.”