Son seeks to recover alleged €267,000 debt from deceased mother’s €25m estate

A man has secured a court order clearing the way for intended proceedings aimed at recovering from the estimated €25 million estate of his deceased mother a debt of €267,000 she allegedly owed to him.

Ann Gibbons, a widow of Kilcree House, Kilcree, Co Kilkenny, died testate aged 92 on January 12th 2022 leaving 11 surviving adult children. She was predeceased by her husband Michael and one of their 12 children.

A businesswoman and significant landowner, Ms Gibbons was well known in Kilkenny and further afield for her involvement with the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) and a wide range of other organisations.

She was made an honorary life member of the IFA in 2006 in honour of her service to the organisation and its predecessor, the National Farmers Association. She and her late husband Michael were involved in the Farmers’ Rights Campaign in the 1960s.

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Among the many roles she held at one time was as national chairwoman of the IFA’s family farm committee, a member of the IFA’s national executive and council, a member of the board of the Council for the Status of Women and chairwoman of the broadcasting committee of Radio Kilkenny.

Other roles included being a member of the council of An Taisce, which also conferred honorary life membership on her, and a member of the board and employers’ representative on the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.

Her son Alan, who last October became Ireland’s Ambassador to the Czech Republic, and another son, John, are the executors of her estate which, the High Court heard on Monday, is worth more than €25 million.

Dermot Cahill SC, for Martin Gibbons, another son of the deceased, applied to Ms Justice Siobhán Stack, who manages the court’s probate list, for an order appointing a solicitor, Anthony Canning, as administrator ad litem to extract a limited grant of probate in relation to Ms Gibbons’ estate.*

The application, under section 27.4 of the Succession Act, was made for the purpose of taking proceedings of recovering a debt of some €267,000 which Mr Gibbons alleges remains outstanding to him from his mother.

Because Ms Gibbons died in January 2022, the time limit for taking such proceedings is due to expire on January 11th next and the executors had not taken out a grant of probate necessary for any such proceedings, the judge was told.

Barrister Bonnie Hickey, for the executors, asked for more time to extract a grant.

Alan Gibbons is due to return to Ireland on Tuesday this week to sign probate papers, said counsel.

Having heard the sides, the judge said she would grant the application to appoint Mr Canning as administrator ad litem to extract a limited grant for the purpose of Martin Gibbons’ intended proceedings.*

*This article was ammended on December 20th