Background
Ms. Yeoksee Ooi had lived at Dromin House, Co. Wicklow since 2006 with her partner and their three children. The house was owned solely by her partner, who in 2007 had borrowed just over €5 million from First Active plc, secured by a mortgage over the property. No repayments were made after 2013. Promontoria Scariff DAC subsequently acquired First Active’s mortgage interests and in 2021 commenced Circuit Court proceedings for possession. Ms. Ooi, as an occupant, was served and participated in those proceedings. In January 2023 the Circuit Court granted a possession order with an eighteen-month stay; an appeal to the High Court was dismissed in March 2024. The stay expired on 7 September 2024 and Promontoria thereafter moved to enforce the order. Ms. Ooi had also separately issued proceedings challenging the constitutionality of the Family Home Protection Act 1976, which remained pending at trial.
On 25 September 2024 an execution order was filed with the Wicklow County Registrar’s office. The Wicklow Court Messenger, Mr. Andrew Cullen, declined to execute the possession order, citing discomfort arising from a prior visit to the property in connection with an unrelated money judgment. Evidence at trial disclosed that Promontoria had already identified Mr. Joseph Burke — the Dublin City Sheriff, not a Wicklow court messenger — and had agreed to pay him €17,000 to carry out the repossession, before the County Registrar was ever approached. Mr. Burke then contacted the County Registrar, who agreed to appoint him. On 14 October 2024 a warrant issued in the County Registrar’s name appointing Mr. Burke. On 24 February 2025 Mr. Burke took possession of the House, handing it to Blackwater Asset Management, agents of Promontoria. The property was sold by a receiver on 4 July 2025. These proceedings were issued on 25 March 2025 challenging the lawfulness of the warrant and the repossession, including a claim for damages for alleged breach of Article 40.5 of the Constitution (inviolability of the dwelling). The case ran for six days in May 2026.
At the time of eviction, the household included Ms. Ooi’s youngest child — a minor sitting Leaving Certificate mock exams at a nearby school — a second child attending university, and an eldest child with special needs who was in the full-time care of Ms. Ooi, a retired doctor. The County Registrar confirmed at trial that her normal practice would always be to assess whether children or vulnerable adults were present before executing a possession order, and that she would defer execution if an occupant was seeking access to the courts.
The Court’s Holding
Following a detailed review of the evidence, the court (Quinn J.) made a series of adverse factual findings against the State defendants. It found that no valid warrant appointing Mr. Cullen as Wicklow Court Messenger was ever issued, despite the County Registrar’s genuine belief to the contrary, and notwithstanding template letters generated on 14 October 2024 bearing a rubber-stamp of her signature — applied by Mr. Cullen without her review. The court found the County Registrar had effectively allowed Mr. Cullen to produce and stamp key documents, including the warrant appointing Mr. Burke, without herself reviewing or signing any of them.
The court found that after 14 October 2024, the County Registrar and her Court Messenger took no further interest in or supervisory role over the execution process. Mr. Burke’s own evidence established he acted at all times on the explicit instructions of Promontoria’s solicitors, merely informing — not seeking approval from — the County Registrar. The court held that responsibility for executing the court order, which under section 5 of the Enforcement of Court Orders Act 1926 was required to vest in the County Registrar through a warrant signed by her and authorising the court messenger by name, was in this case entirely abdicated and surrendered to Promontoria and Mr. Burke. The entire sequence of normal protective steps — personal engagement with occupants, assessment of vulnerable persons, deferral where court applications were pending — was abandoned.
The court further noted that section 5 of the 1926 Act requires that every court messenger executing an execution order be furnished with a warrant in writing signed by the County Registrar and authorising the court messenger by name. That provision, the court observed, forms the legal backdrop against which the validity of the warrant appointing Mr. Burke — a Dublin City Sheriff and not the Wicklow Court Messenger — falls to be assessed. The court identified this as a central legal question, with Ms. Ooi’s claim that the warrant was unlawful for appointing someone who was not a “court messenger” at the core of the constitutional damages claim under Article 40.5.
Key Takeaways
- Section 5 of the Enforcement of Court Orders Act 1926 requires a warrant personally signed by the County Registrar, authorising a named court messenger — a rubber-stamp applied by a subordinate without the Registrar’s prior review does not satisfy this requirement.
- A County Registrar who appoints a sheriff from another county at the instigation of the judgment creditor, and then exercises no supervisory role over execution, risks a finding that she abdicated her statutory duty and the related constitutional safeguards for the occupants of a dwelling.
- Normal practice in Wicklow required engagement with occupants, assessment of vulnerable persons (children and adults with special needs), and deferral where court applications were pending; none of these steps occurred because the County Registrar ceded control entirely to Promontoria and its chosen agent.
- A judgment creditor that selects, approaches, and agrees to pay the officer who will execute a possession warrant before any warrant is issued by the court office may face findings that the execution process was improperly driven by private commercial interests rather than the court system.
Why It Matters
This judgment offers a granular examination of how possession orders are actually executed in Ireland and exposes significant procedural vulnerabilities where court registrar offices outsource enforcement to parties selected and paid by the judgment creditor. The court’s factual findings — that no proper warrant was issued to the Wicklow Court Messenger, that the County Registrar applied her signature by rubber-stamp to documents she had not reviewed, and that all normal protective steps for occupants were abandoned — provide a roadmap for future challenges to irregular repossessions under the 1926 Act.
The constitutional dimension is significant. Article 40.5 guarantees the inviolability of the dwelling. Where a home is repossessed on foot of a warrant that may not comply with the statutory requirements of the 1926 Act — and where a family including a special-needs adult and a minor child was evicted with none of the procedural safeguards that the court system itself had developed — the case tests the limits of constitutional protection against state-facilitated interference with the home. Practitioners advising both lenders and borrowers in mortgage enforcement will need to scrutinise the warrant, the identity and authority of the executing officer, and whether the County Registrar maintained genuine supervisory control over the execution process.