Debt recovery firm Everyday Finance is entitled to be substituted for AIB for the payment of more than €1.4 million each by a husband and wife landlord couple, the High Court has ruled.
Mr Justice Brian O'Moore also rejected allegations made by Paddy McKeown and Adelaide McCarthy in their objections to the Everyday application as "unpleasant and baseless".
In May 2017, the High Court made judgment orders of some €1.469 million against Mr McKeown and €1,467 million against Ms McCarthy, both of the Poplars, Villa Nova, Douglas Road, Cork.
They arose out of debts to AIB which were secured on a number of properties owned by the couple in Cork.
Appeals
They failed in an appeal against the judgment to the Court of Appeal and an application for a further appeal to the Supreme Court was refused.
Following the earlier High Court judgment AIB transferred the debt to Everyday which was then joined by the court as a co-plaintiff with AIB.
Everyday then asked Mr Justice O'Moore to substitute it for AIB in relation to the payment of money owed from the 2017 judgment.
Mr Justice O'Moore ruled the legal interest in the facilities and guarantees which led to the 2017 judgment had been validly and effectively assigned to Everyday by the High Court.
He said none of the objections raised by the defendants justified refusing the order sought by Everyday.
'Deeply unhappy'
He said he was "deeply unhappy" at the way in which the defendants chose to meet the Everyday application.
While they are entitled to resist it they had "chosen to do so by making unpleasant and baseless allegations and insinuations against individuals, both named and unnamed, which should never have been made", he said.
He also said the application by Everyday in no way varied the fundamental obligations of the defendants, on foot of the 2017 judgment order, to repay debt the court had found they owe.
That finding is now unchallengeable, given "the complete failure" of the appeals taken by the defendants against that order
