Tracey Gilligan commences fresh legal action against Cab and Department of Social Protection

Tracey Gilligan, a daughter of convicted drug dealer John Gilligan, has begun legal proceedings against the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) and the Department of Social Protection.

The High Court judicial review, which has just been filed, is the latest in a long running series of cases involving various members of the Gilligan family dating back to the 1990s.

John Gilligan (71) was once one of the biggest importers of drugs into the Republic and his gang murdered crime journalist Veronica Guerin in 1996. Gilligan was charged with her murder but was acquitted. However, he was convicted on drugs charges and was released from prison in October 2013.

Cab has pursued a number of asset confiscation cases against him on the basis that properties he was linked to represented the proceeds of crime. While one of those properties included a Dublin house Ms Gilligan had a stake in, the High Court was told that she had no criminal record.

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The last property in John Gilligan’s once vast criminal empire was cleared for sale by the High Court for €380,000 in December 2019. The three-bed house at Willsbrook, Lucan had been rented out to long-term tenants after it was seized by Cab as part of its operation against Gilligan.

At the High Court, Ms Justice Carmel Stewart granted permission for the sale of the house, with a stipulation that Ms Gilligan take 20 per cent of the net proceeds. The court found her 20 per cent interest in a property in Lucan did not represent proceeds of crime and she was a single mother with two children.

Ms Gilligan’s newly filed action is against Cab and the chief appeals officer of the Social Welfare Appeals Office, the Department of Social Protection and the State. The precise nature of the case is unclear. Comment has been sought, and is awaited, from Ms Gilligan’s solicitor.

Ms Gilligan lived in southern Spain for many years, running the Judge’s Chambers pub in Alicante, a region where her father has been linked to many properties. He has lived there in recent years after efforts were made to shoot him dead in Dublin after his release from prison.

In March 2014, Gilligan was hit in a burst of gunfire near his brother’s home on the Greenfort Estate in Clondalkin. He sustained a number of wounds but survived. He fled to Britain and eventually southern Spain once he had recovered.

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