A TIPPERARY couple who lost an eviction battle with a bank have denied in the High Court that they poured concrete into a sewer to sabotage the opening of their former home as a nursing home for old people.
Michael and Ida McLoughlin, former owners of Yewston House, Nenagh, also denied they were responsible for intimidation of staff and suppliers to the nursing home, but Mrs McLoughlin said she had telephoned the matron, Ms Una Hogan, at her home in the middle of the night.
Mr Justice Geoghegan granted Foxberry, trading as Nenagh Manor Nursing Home, injunctions restraining the McLoughlins from speaking to anyone entering or leaving the home, or from interfering with alternative sewerage works. He also restrained them from impeding lawful access to the home or sewerage works being carried out.
The judge said the McLoughlins were upset that they had lost their property to the ICC Bank, which sold it to Foxberry.
He told Mr John Gleeson, counsel for Foxberry, that his client was an innocent party who had bought the house and wanted to turn it into a nursing home which it could not do without access to sewerage facilities.