The High Court refused to quash summonses issued against two current and former Irish Bank Resolution Corporation employees in a private prosecution alleging dishonesty. Mr Justice Hogan ruled on 9 July 2013 that the case could proceed beyond its initial stage only if the Director of Public Prosecutions expressly consented to the next step.
The summonses followed complaints by Patrick Halpin, a director and shareholder of two companies that reportedly owed substantial sums to IBRC. Halpin alleged that, before a receiver was appointed to the companies on 17 February 2012, he and his accountant were invited to a meeting at the bank’s offices about a possible consensual process for realising assets at Merrion Hall. He claimed the employees knew a receiver’s appointment had already been decided and concealed that from them. The applicants denied the charges.
The court rejected the applicants’ argument that reforms introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 1999 had abolished the right to bring a private prosecution for an indictable offence. Hogan said clear statutory language would be needed to remove that established right, and the legislation instead indicated that the Oireachtas intended to preserve it. However, he explained that a private prosecutor’s role was limited: once the case entered the statutory process for indictable offences, further progress depended on the Director’s consent. Without the required consent or direction, the District Court would have to strike out the proceedings.
Hogan also rejected the argument that the applicants were entitled to be heard before the summonses were issued. He said extending a prior-hearing requirement to criminal prosecutions would be unworkable given the volume of District Court cases. He found that Halpin’s personal grievance against IBRC did not, by itself, make the prosecution abusive.
The judge said the complaints did not clearly identify dishonesty or deception inducing someone to act or refrain from acting, and described the supporting evidence as “slender and tenuous”. But he considered judicial review premature: the District Court could hear further evidence and amend defects in a summons, and the applicants had yet to be heard on the merits. He also said quashing a summons for unreasonableness would require wholly exceptional circumstances, which he found were not established.
The court therefore refused the relief sought. Its ruling did not determine whether the applicants committed the alleged offences; it left those complaints for consideration in the District Court, subject to the Director’s express consent for any further step in the prosecution.