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Martin 'The Viper' Foley ordered to pay nearly €1m in outstanding taxes

Martin Foley was given 18 months to pay the outstanding tax (File: RollingNews.ie)
Martin Foley was given 18 months to pay the outstanding tax (File: RollingNews.ie)

Convicted criminal Martin Foley, also known as The Viper, has been ordered to pay the Criminal Assets Bureau almost €1 million in outstanding tax or lose the home in Dublin he shares with his wife and daughter.

Judge Fiona O'Sullivan gave him 18 months to pay the money or CAB can seize his home.

She refused an application to allow the family remain in the house for another eight years until his daughter turns 18.

Neither Foley nor his wife were Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for the judgment.

CAB assessed Foley as owing €916,960.12 in unpaid taxes from 1993 to 2000, a figure which has since increased due to interest and penalties.

The case has been going on for more than ten years.

Foley has more than 40 convictions, including for assault, robbery and possession of weapons.

He was part of the criminal gang led by Martin Cahill, who was known as the General, and has survived several attempts on his life.

The house, at Cashel Avenue in Kimmage, is registered in the names of Foley and his deceased wife Pauline, but the court rejected the argument of his current wife Sonya that she owns at least half of it and it should not be sold.

It found that it "could not accept" her "assertions without concrete evidence of alleged expenditure or other claimed contributions".

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Tax 'judgment remains unsatisfied' - court

Martin and Sonya Foley said they are married and have a child together - who was born in 2015 - but they did not produce a marriage or a birth certificate and the court ruled that "the fact of marriage would not in and of itself be sufficient to create a beneficial interest".

Foley said he works two days a week as a van driver but "struggles to get by on my pension". He is 74, his wife is on disability and he said they have "no additional assets".

The Dublin City Sheriff visited the house to seize property to set against the date but only raised €2,503.

"Save for this payment", the court found, "the judgment remains unsatisfied".

Foley also claimed he was led to believe that CAB and the Revenue Commissioners had agreed not to pursue him for the outstanding tax bill because he had made a deal with them in relation to Charles Bowden.

Bowden, who is in the witness protection programme, was responsible for the weapons used by John Gilligan's drugs gang and testified against Gilligan and Brian Meehan.

He also admitted in the Special Criminal Court that he loaded the gun used when Foley was shot and seriously injured outside his home.

Foley sued Bowden and was awarded €120,000 against him.

However, he claimed that he made a deal because he was later told by two detectives in Crumlin Garda Station that if he did not pursue Bowden for €120,000, CAB would not pursue him for the tax debt.

Foley did not say when this "alleged verbal agreement" took place.

The judge rejected this claim and said there was "no evidence before the court of any alleged agreement to that effect".

He said he inherited the house from his mother and it is not the proceeds of crime.

Foley's wife Sonya said that she is not liable in any way for the debt owed to CAB and pointed out that it is her home and only property.

"There is no reality to me purchasing another home," she said, "eviction would make my daughter and I homeless".

The court accepted that a sale would cause "significant disruption to all of the family, in particular to the young child" and Foley has "a strong emotional attachment" to it as the house "was in his family prior to his ownership".

It also accepted that a sale would "likely cause upset, inconvenience and distress" but found that Sonya Foley "is not a co-owner and holds no ascertained interest at this time".

It pointed out that he was aware of the tax judgment since 2014, that his child was born the following year, and that no payments have been made towards the outstanding bill.

Judge O'Sullivan put a stay of 18 months on the "well-charging order" to "ameliorate the effects that such an order might have on the young dependent child".