The High Court has awarded Allied Irish Banks plc judgment for €119,402.09 against Timothy F McCarthy over a loan advanced in 2007, refusing his application to have the case sent to a plenary hearing.
In a judgment delivered on 7 November 2019, Mr Justice Barr considered the bank’s application for summary judgment. The loan offer was for €140,000 to help buy land at Liscarrigane, Clonrohid, Macroom, County Cork. The bank’s evidence was that the amount outstanding had reached €119,402.09 by September 2019.
McCarthy accepted that he borrowed the money and did not contest that the bank had demanded repayment in October 2016. He argued that the bank had lent recklessly despite his financial position, misrecorded whether he had employees, delayed property sales, and wrongly pressured him to take life cover. He also disputed the account calculations and said irregular payments had changed the repayment terms.
The judge rejected those arguments as grounds to send the claim to a full hearing. He said Irish law did not recognise a tort of reckless lending. He accepted the bank’s explanation that the apparent interest discrepancy arose from a misunderstanding and that the 52-acre description in the loan paperwork was a typographical error; the loan had been sanctioned on the basis of 25 acres.
The court found the employee-record entry was not deliberate and was not relevant to the loan offer. It also found the irregular payments did not vary the original contract, and that the evidence did not show the bank acted unreasonably or unlawfully in considering proposed property sales. The loan letter required life cover before drawdown, and the judge said McCarthy had no contractual right to cancel it.
Applying the summary judgment test, the court was not satisfied that McCarthy had shown a real or bona fide defence sufficient to justify a plenary hearing. It refused to remit the case and entered summary judgment for the bank for €119,402.09.