Fun park liquidator may face court challenge

One of the creditors of a theme park wound up yesterday with a €1.5 million deficit may challenge the appointment of a liquidator to the company in the High Court.

Poga's Wonderland Ltd, run by well-known actor, Mr Bryan Murray, owes employees and suppliers €1.47 million, according to the directors' statement of affairs distributed at a creditors' meeting in west Dublin yesterday.

Its directors, Mr Murray and Ms Kathleen Lambe, estimate that after it has cashed in the company's assets, valued at €91,000, the total shortfall will come to €1.38 million.

Poga's Wonderland operated a park at Goff's in Kill, Co Kildare. It ceased trading after just two months at the end of August. More than 100 workers, many of them teenagers and students, are owed €72,133 as a result of its failure.

The biggest creditor is advertising agency, AFA O'Meara, which is owed €273,184. That company is considering going to the High Court to overturn the appointment of the directors' nominee, accountant Mr John McStay of McStay Luby, as liquidator at yesterday's meeting.

AFA O'Meara proposed appointing Mr Ken Fennell of Kavanagh Fennell. While a number of creditors supported this, the motion was defeated.

Mr Murray, Ms Lambe and two companies of which they are directors, Islandbridge Productions and Toybox Productions, opposed Mr Fennell, as did another of the project's backers, Mr Richard Pawley. He, the two directors, and the companies are listed as creditors, and are owed €599,693.

However, during the course of the meeting, The Irish Times understands that many of the other creditors questioned whether the directors and the two companies had a right to vote at the meeting.

They claimed afterwards that Mr Murray, Mr Pawley, Ms Lambe and the two companies had not appeared on an earlier list of creditors that they received in advance of the meeting.

Following the meeting, Mr Murray said he could not comment until after a further meeting today. A liquidator is also expected to be appointed to Islandbridge Productions at a meeting in the same venue this morning.

The workers will receive a total of €70,333 from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment's employers' insolvency fund. Mr McStay said that work on getting the necessary forms to them would begin within a week. Workers will receive up to a maximum of €507.90 a week.

Mr McStay estimated that it would take the Department between a month and six weeks to process the claims.

Yesterday, many of them expressed anger at the way in which they discovered that they would not be paid for the final weeks' work there.

Ms Emer Murphy, who is owed €696, said that she and her colleagues had received a number of cheques that bounced, and were then sent proxy forms inviting them to attend yesterday's meeting. "What does a 16-year-old know about proxies?" she asked.

Mr McStay said the prospects for ordinary creditors recovering anything from the company were very poor.

The park's launch received high-profile publicity. Yesterday Mr Murray argued that the company had adequate financing before it opened. He said the park failed to attract enough customers. "We were expecting numbers to come through the doors and in the end we just got 15,000," he said.

Mr Murray has appeared in a number of TV programmes, including Liverpool-based soap, Brookside, in which he played abusive husband and father, Trevor Jordache.

Poga's Wonderland: main creditors

AFA O'Meara: €273,184

Arachas Insurance: €80,666

Bryan Murray: €70,788

Employees: €72,133

Goffs Bloodstock Sales: €60,000

Islandbridge Productions: €112,336

Kathleen Lambe: €66,757

Richard Pawley: €179,710

Toybox Productions: €170,102

Vincent McNamara Photography: €50,000

Note: Islandbridge Productions and Toybox Productions are connected to the company's directors, Mr Bryan Murray and Ms Kathleen Lambe, who are also named as creditors. Mr Richard Pawley was also one of the project's backers.