Amid accusations that it has moved assets to another company, the Donegal firm at the centre of the defective concrete blocks scandal has been warned that it is in danger of facing a contempt of court rap.
It follows repeated failures by Cassidys to comply with a High Court discovery order, which requires the company to turn over thousands of documents.
The company has repeatedly missed deadlines in the case, which is being taken on behalf of Defective Blocks Ireland CLG – who represent around 2,000 affected homeowners – by Coleman Legal. The Cassidys defendants in the case relate to Cassidy Brothers Concrete Products Limited, Cassidy Brothers Topmix Limited, Moyle Plant Limited and Cranford Concrete Plant Products Limited.
Solicitor Ms Noreen McGovern, in an affidavit, said that it appears the case that Cassidy Brothers Concrete Products Limited and Cassidy Brothers Topmix Limited are being wound down with trading and activities either taken over or diverted to Cassidy Precast Limited.
In the affidavit, Ms McGovern says there have been five transfers of property to Cassidy Precast Limited – an accusation that has been denied by legal representatives of Cassidys. Ms McGovern pointed out that Cassidy Precast Limited has the same registered address, email address and telephone number as the companies being sued.
The case came before Mr Justice Mark Sanfey on Monday at the Commercial High Court, which heard that Cassidys have not yet made discovery.
“Anything that has been addressed has been addressed way out of time,” Mr Robert Fitzpatrick SC, for the homeowners, said.
“The Plaintiffs’ lawyers have been ignored. The Plaintiffs are being ignored. The Court is being ignored…We say that at some point the Court has to reach a point where enough is enough.”
Mr Fitzpatrick said there are “undoubtedly challenges” for Cassidys in making discovery, but these challenges have existed since last summer and “the Court is being told the same thing again and again”.
Mr Fitzpatrick said they were “wary of getting a dumper truck of documents at some point, whenever discovery ultimately comes to be made, if it ever comes to be made”, but said that, when the matter last came before the Court, there “had been no compliance whatsoever with the Court’s directions”.
At a previous sitting of the court, Mr Eamonn Dillon, the firm’s solicitor, told how Cassidys had encountered difficulty given the voluminous documentation required and how the cost would be around €100,000.
In an affidavit to the court, Mr Dillon outlined how flooding occured at his office in Listowel, Co Kerry, following a deep freeze and snow.
“I’m on my own in the office, Judge, there’s nobody else but me to do this work,” Mr Dillon said. He told the court that records had to be gathered from a period spanning around 19 years, but that “very substantial work has been done in the interim”. He said they are now working on scanning a vast swathe of documents while a process of “indexing, collating and gathering” has been undertaken.
However, Mr Justice Sanfey warned: “You cannot keep disregarding orders of the Court and missing deadlines”.
He said: “I do appreciate there have been a myriad of circumstances which perhaps justify certain of the delays, but there comes a point when this Court has to consider whether or not continued breach of court orders amounts to a contempt of court…I think we’re almost just about at that point now.”
While commenting that the task was “probably a very difficult” one, he added: “This cannot be allowed to go on and my patience is wearing thin”.
He said he was prepared to give the firm one more opportunity to make good its undertaking to comply with discovery.
Mr Justice Sanfey said: “I mean what I say if that’s not complied with in three weeks I will start to consider whether or not the repeated breaches of the directions in this Court amount to something that I should do something about.”
Donegal County Council and the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) are also named defendants in the matter.
At a previous sitting of the court, Mr Dillon told how Cassidys had encountered difficulty given the voluminous documentation required and how the cost would be around €100,000.
This week, Mr Dillon told Mr Justice Sanfey that he was travelling to Donegal “to make sure that everything that has to be done will be done” and said he was confident the work could be done within three weeks.
The matter was adjourned to March 3.