Jim Corr reaches agreement over €1.4m debt

Musician Jim Corr has reached an agreement over a €1.4 million debt owed to a bank, the High Court heard today.

Mr Corr, a member of the band The Corrs, had been due back in court to continue cross-examination by ACC Bank about his finances as part of the bank’s efforts to recover the €1.4 million.

He was put under intense questioning when he first appeared in May and was due to answer more questions today, including about what happened to some €4 million ACC says was held in his various bank accounts six years ago.

As the cross-examination was about to resume today, Bernard Dunleavy BL, for ACC, said that just before they parties entered court today, proposals were made by Mr Corr and as a result Mr Dunleavy asked for a few minutes to allow the sides address all matters.

The court adjourned briefly and following another short adjournment, Mr Dunleavy said he was happy to inform the judge the parties had reached an agreement in principle for Mr Corr to address all his liabilities. That needed to be put into writing and another adjournment was agreed until this afternoon, at 2pm, to allow this to happen.

Mr Justice Peter Kelly put the matter back to 2pm.

Last May, Mr Corr told the court he was trying to protect his and his family’s interests when he sold off a mortgage-free Dublin 4 apartment for €350,000 shortly after ACC got the €1.4 million judgment against him which arose out of an unpaid loan for the purchase of 94 acres in Kilkenny, one of a number of properties he had bought as part of a business parternship.

“I was trying to protect my finances as best I could on behalf of my son because I recognised I was in dire straits,” he said.

He was asked a number of times by Mr Dunleavy BL, whether it was just a co- incidence or a deliberate effort to make sure the bank did not get possession of the mortgage-free apartment at Donnybrook Castle, Dublin 4, that it sold a month after the February 2011 judgment even though it had been on the market since 2008.

Mr Corr, after having to be prompted a number of times to answer the question by the judge, said he was trying “to sell everything” from a significant portfolio of properties that he had built up with his former partners Liam and Phillip Marks (the MarksCorr Partnership).

Mr Corr, who said he sometimes lives with his former partner Gayle Williamson and their son in another nearby apartment at the Courtyard in Bangor, said he was trying to protect his son as his finances had been “devastated mainly due to the actions of my former (business) partner”.

The court heard the €1.4 million judgment ACC is seeking to enforce was also against 50 per cent shareholder in the partnership Liam Marks.

The money Mr Corr got from property sales largely went to put out “financial fires”.

He insisted he had done his best to come to arrangements with ACC over the debt as he had successfully done with Bank of Ireland and Ulster Bank in relation to other debts. ends