A hot tub for Tuskar as investors get soaked

When Alan Hynes’s Tuskar Asset Management collapsed in the crash, investors lost about €18 million. But if they took a bath, at least Hynes still has his hot tub.

Tuskar Property Holdings (TPH), a company recently bought by family members of the disgraced accountant, has in recent weeks applied for planning permission to retain a hot tub at the holiday home Hynes owns in Dunmore East. The neighbours complained about it, he says.

The timing of the planning application isn’t fantastic, considering Hynes was found last Friday to have engaged in misconduct by a disciplinary tribunal of Chartered Accountants Ireland (CAI), which threw him out as a member. At least there’ll be somewhere hot and steamy to relax if the stress mounts.

Hynes has previously taken out mortgages on the property, which is a stone’s throw from the shore, in conjunction with his wife, Noreen. The couple also received planning permission in 2005 for a huge extension to the property.

This month's application by TPH, which Hynes says is purchasing the Dunmore house from him, is for a variation to the 2005 permission. TPH was in receivership until January, when the receiver, Declan Taite stood down after selling off its assets. In an October letter to the Companies Registration Office confirming he was being discharged, Taite said TPH was "insolvent". Hynes told me it now has money to invest.

TPH cropped up in Hynes disciplinary hearings last week, when the tribunal chairman was told by Hynes's barrister that he is doing work for the company, but that the earnings are "meagre". The couple is now reliant, he said, on a stipend from the CAI benevolent fund paid to Noreen Hynes. He described their situation as "impecunious".

Hynes, who has denied any wrongdoing, tells me he will appeal the tribunal’s ruling. Investors, however, are still soaking.