The Court of Appeal has ordered Patrick and Idena Carty to pay Mars Capital Finance Ireland DAC’s costs arising from their unsuccessful appeal concerning a property at Newtown, Caim, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford.
Mr Justice McDonald said Mars had been entirely successful in the appeal and was therefore presumptively entitled to its costs under section 169 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015. Court President Ms Justice Costello and Ms Justice Pilkington agreed with the proposed order.
The ruling deals only with costs and follows the court’s substantive judgment delivered on March 18, 2026. The appellants had originally sought to advance four grounds of appeal. Two were not pursued, one had no factual basis and was not pursued orally, while a further ground was argued and rejected.
Part of the appeal sought to raise issues similar to those considered in Start Mortgages v Kavanagh concerning the execution of possession orders. Mars filed additional affidavit evidence in October 2025 after that issue was added to the appeal. At the hearing in December, counsel for the appellants accepted that the Kavanagh-based challenge could no longer be maintained.
The appellants nevertheless argued that Mars should not receive its costs, saying the additional evidence should have been produced earlier. The court rejected that argument, noting that the issue had not been raised in the High Court and that the appellants continued with the appeal after receiving Mars’s evidence well before the hearing.
Mr Justice McDonald also rejected an argument based on public interest, finding that this was litigation between private parties and that the appeal had failed on other grounds in any event.
The judgment records that a Circuit Court possession order was made on December 6, 2017, was not appealed and became executable after a three-month stay expired. The Court of Appeal ordered that Mars’s appeal costs be adjudicated if the parties cannot agree them.