Celtic Tiger publican couple secure court write-off of €2.8m debt

The High Court has approved personal insolvency arrangements (PIAs) allowing a separated couple who have worked in the pub and food industry to write off more than €2.8 million of debts.

Mr Justice Alexander Owens on Monday approved the arrangements for Bernadette Canning, of Monknewtown, Slane, Co Meath, and Graham Canning, of Ledwidge Hall, Slane, Co Meath.

Personal insolvency arrangements are a form of personal financial rescue that allows individuals to escape mortgage and other debt. They have been used by many people to clear significant Celtic Tiger-era debts.

The court heard the Cannings got into financial difficulties after their businesses, which had borrowed heavily from Bank of Ireland loans, failed in the 2000s.

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The former couple, who are both aged in their mid-50s and have four children, had given personal guarantees in respect of the loans.

The Cannings had debts totalling €3.2 million, mainly to Bank of Ireland, of which €2.8 million was unsecured.

Mr Canning now works as a self-employed food consultant, while Ms Canning is a carer for her elderly father.

A chef and a former publican, Mr Canning and his wife Bernie ran some well-known pubs, hospitality and catering businesses in Co Dublin and Co Meath, including the Conyngham Arms Hotel and the Poet’s Rest bar in the village of Slane.

Mr Canning bought The Kestrel pub in Walkinstown, Dublin 12, in 2004 for €7.3 million, then a record price paid for a pub, but it closed in 2010 and was later bought and reopened by another publican.

After leaving the pub trade, the couple won awards for their food products made through their Co Meath business Blast & Wilde at the Blas na hÉireann Irish Food Awards at the Dingle Food Festival in 2014.

At the time of the awards, Mr Canning said that he “built up a substantial pub business in Dublin but that went with the Celtic Tiger” and that the couple “had to reinvent” themselves making food products.

At the High Court on Monday, barrister Keith Farry, for the Cannings’ personal insolvency practitioner, said Ms Canning’s PIA proposes that the family home will be sold, with the proceeds going to the bank. This is to deal with the €396,000 secured debt.

It was proposed the house, at Monknewtown, which has a current market value of €396,000, will be sold to an approved housing body from whom Ms Canning will rent the property back.

She will also make a lump-sum payment of €5,000, of which €1,000 is to go to the unsecured creditors.

The remainder will go towards the costs of the personal insolvency process.

Mr Canning’s PIA proposes he will make a contribution of €18,000.

Under the arrangement’s terms, about €4,000 from that lump sum will go towards the costs of seeking a PIA, while the remainder is to be paid to his unsecured creditors.

Mr Canning was agreeable to the family home being sold to the housing body and rented back to Ms Canning.

An additional six acres of forestry in Co Meath owned by the couple are to be transferred to the bank and sold.

In each case, the creditors will do better from the PIAs being approved than if the Cannings were adjudicated as bankrupts, counsel said.

There were no objections to approval of the PIAs, both of which are 24 months in duration

Mr Justice Owens noted the applications arose out of the recession. He said he had no hesitation in approving the PIAs.