Guardian News and Media/Belfast
A second stash of thousands of euros has been found in the one-time Dublin home of a former IRA hunger striker turned Celtic Tiger property tycoon, it has emerged.
Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) has been carrying out searches of the house of the bankrupt builder Tom McFeely after 140,000 euros was found hidden in a bath at the luxury property in Donnybrook last Friday.
As CAB officials went through McFeely’s former home in Ailesbury Road they discovered another 60,000 euros hidden in the bath.
The latest cash was made up of 50 euro notes wrapped up in elastic bands.
The 200,000 euros will remain frozen in a Dublin bank controlled by the state as further investigations are carried out.
McFeely took part in the first IRA hunger strike for political status in the Maze prison in 1980, spending 53 days without food before it was called off.
A native of Dungiven in County Derry, he was sentenced for offences including trying to kill police officers and carrying out a post office robbery in Northern Ireland during the 1970s.
McFeely has been accused by residents of a private flat complex in Dublin of carrying out the collective robbery of their life savings.
McFeely’s Priory Hall apartment block was so hastily constructed during the property boom of the Celtic Tiger years that Dublin Corporation (now Dublin city council) has ruled it unsafe for habitation.
McFeely’s reputation as a builder was destroyed after the council concluded that Priory Hall was a fire trap, and residents were forced to leave their homes.
Since the council’s safety warning in 2009, up to 250 residents have been left in limbo, with many in temporary accommodation.
Last month, a Priory Hall resident, Stephanie Meehan, claimed that the stress of dealing with the problems arising from the complex had driven her partner, Fiachra Daly, to kill himself on July 15 aged 37.
McFeely and his business partner Larry O’Mahony borrowed 186mn euros from Irish Nationwide Building Society at the peak of Ireland’s property boom, and these loans are now controlled by the National Assets Management Agency (Nama) - the state body that took over the toxic properties and other assets of builders and speculators whose portfolios collapsed when the Celtic Tiger boom went bust.
The state agency is also taking legal action against McFeely’s wife, Nina Lynn Kessler, over debts claimed by Nama in relation to the Ailesbury Road property, which has an unpaid mortgage of 9.5mn euros.
McFeely has a reputation for having a volatile temper, and last year was reportedly pictured trying to attack a reporter with a broken pint glass when she confronted him at a Portuguese resort.
