The Court of Appeal has dismissed Finian Brannigan’s appeal against a High Court judgment requiring him to pay €188,412 in tax arrears to the Collector General. The appeal court also declined to stay that judgment.
The High Court had granted summary judgment on 12 November 2012. Brannigan appealed, and the case was transferred from the Supreme Court to the Court of Appeal under Article 64 of the Constitution after the new court was established.
Brannigan did not materially dispute that the tax debt was due. He argued that a meeting with Revenue official Michael Cunningham on 12 August 2010 had resulted in an agreement: Revenue would issue a limited tax clearance certificate, accept payments from his criminal legal aid earnings and hold off enforcement while those payments were made. Revenue officials denied that such an agreement had been reached.
The appeal court explained that the legal aid regulations required a solicitor to hold a tax clearance certificate to be included on the relevant panel, and that fees were not payable for assignments accepted while a solicitor was not on that panel. A Revenue letter of 6 April 2011 said Brannigan was not on the panel and that no fees were payable for the cases he had accepted. The court concluded that the expected legal aid income could not support his proposed arrangement.
The court treated the alleged agreement as a separate cross-claim, rather than a defence arising from the same circumstances as the tax debt. It said the cross-claim was weak even if an agreement existed, because there was no legal aid income to collect and Brannigan had not taken meaningful steps to secure a certificate or agree a phased payment plan between August 2010 and April 2011. The court also noted that he had not replied to Cunningham’s affidavit, which said Brannigan was expected to contact the Collector General’s Office to agree an action plan.
Applying the principles governing whether judgment should be stayed pending an independent cross-claim, the court found no basis to delay enforcement. It dismissed the appeal, leaving the High Court judgment in place. It did not determine whether the alleged agreement had in fact been made.