THE FORMER partner of a Dublin solicitor has been granted a 20 per cent share of the €1 million home they shared for almost 15 years.
Thomas Mannion (53) had asked the court to grant him a 100 per cent legal and financial interest in the house but Judge Anthony Hunt said he could not do this.
The judge also told Adrienne Cawley, counsel for Yvonne Donnelly (44), who still lives in the property, that he could not approach the case either on the basis that Ms Donnelly was entitled to anything close to an equal interest in the property.
Judge Hunt told Ms Donnelly in the Circuit Civil Court he was satisfied she had contributed indirectly towards the upkeep of the house at Lower Kilmacud Road, Stillorgan, Co Dublin.
Judge Hunt said Mr Mannion, who lives at College Park Way, Dundrum, Dublin, had borne the lion's share of mortgage repayments and the cost of refurbishments to the property.
It had been bought in 1983 in the joint name of Mr Mannion and his then wife, who separated in 1986 and whom he then bought out. He met Ms Donnelly in 1986.
Ms Donnelly had moved in with him on a more formal and permanent basis in 1991, two years after the birth of their first child.
They had lived together until 2005 when the relationship came to an acrimonious end. Ms Donnelly had taken redundancy from her job in 1992 and an arrangement had been made, for the purpose of paying for household costs, whereby Ms Donnelly was employed by Mr Mannion's practice.
She had been paid €1,500 a month, out of which she had discharged household expenses. This arrangement had ended in 2005 but the court accepted that during this arrangement, Ms Donnelly had made contributions towards the running of the household.
"I can infer from this that the ongoing contributions made by Ms Donnelly to the household were of significance in terms of his ability to discharge the mortgage both before and after renovations to the house," Judge Hunt said.
Judge Hunt said he believed there was in a general sense a pooling system and while Mr Mannion had contributed the lion's share, Ms Donnelly had contributed in other ways.
He said the fairest and most equitable solution he could come to in the circumstances was to grant Ms Donnelly a 20 per cent share and Mr Mannion an 80 per cent share of the beneficial interest in the property.
Judge Hunt told Síle Rooney, for Mr Mannion, that he would grant Ms Donnelly 20 per cent of her legal costs.
Ms Donnelly unsuccessfully sued Mr Mannion in the Employment Appeals Tribunal last year for compensation for unfair dismissal, claiming she had been dismissed from his solicitor's practice after discovering he was in a sexual relationship with his 23-year- old secretary.
Mr Mannion had denied he had ever gainfully employed her in his business. By a 2-1 margin the tribunal concluded that a contract of employment had not existed between them and that it had no jurisdiction to hear the case.