MEP Mick Wallace has told a judge by phone from Strasbourg that if he was allowed to spend Christmas in his now re-possessed Clontarf home, he would hand back the keys to Allied Irish Mortgage Bank in March.
Mr Wallace's lawyers phoned their client after Judge Jacqueline Linnane told them that if he wanted a stay to celebrate Christmas there they would have to ring him and see if he was prepared to co-operate with the bank and hand back the keys.
He told them he was and was granted a stay on the possession order for three months.
Earlier, Judge Linnane was told that three years ago Mr Wallace had threatened the bank with an ultimatum in which he allegedly told them if they did not give him a new loan to buy an apartment in Dublin's Temple Bar he would burn his Clontarf home and would have to be carried out of it in a coffin.
Inquiring if he had a home in Strasbourg, Judge Linnane said she had seen a photograph of him sitting having a drink on a balcony in the shade "somewhere in Europe, certainly warmer than here".
After granting the bank possession of Mr Wallace's Clontarf home, the judge was asked for a three month-stay on the order and insisted on him being phoned to see if he had changed his tune and would hand back the keys.
Ten minutes later, his barrister Jack Tchrakian told the court he could give an undertaking on Mr Wallace's behalf that he would hand back the keys in March.
With regard to Mr Wallace's threat to burn the house, Mr Tchrakian said "people say things in stressful situations".
Judge Linnane had heard that when Mr Wallace was refused a loan for an apartment in Temple Bar, he had become extremely irate and upset.
He had allegedly threatened he would withdraw all co-operation with the bank, which he said would have to take him out of the Clontarf property in a box.
He was also alleged to have said he would burn down the house before giving it up or agreeing to the bank selling it and was prepared to go to jail if necessary.
The judge said it was obvious that in his phone call to the bank that Mr Wallace had become agitated.
Granting the bank an order for possession of the property, Judge Linnane said the evidence was clear that he had defaulted on repayments on the €825,000 mortgage he had used to purchase the house in Clontarf.
She said the High Court had been told in the bankruptcy proceedings that he owed €30m in secured and unsecured debts to creditors and had accepted the default situation regarding his Clontarf loan.
She said the Clontarf property was now in negative equity. The arrears were now €111,258.61 and the overall debt to the bank was €955,044.
She awarded costs against Mr Wallace, saying he had contributed to the legal costs bill by refusing to co-operate with the bank and had told them he would fight them tooth and nail until the end.
Judge Linnane also criticised Mr Wallace for having recently sworn an affidavit over the phone from Strasbourg, something she felt would have been more properly carried out in a face-to-face meeting with his lawyers.
She felt the two main points put forward by Mr Wallace's legal team had no merit. Mr Wallace did not appear in court today.
