The State must pay €20,000 in damages to a woman for an error in a warrant enabling the eviction of her family from their Co Wicklow mansion in a move that resulted in an alleged stand-off with armed gardaí.The High Court found the execution of the order for possession of the €2.325 million Dromin House was unlawful and in breach of Yeoksee Ooi’s constitutional rights.Ooi, a former eye surgeon who now cares full-time for her adult son with additional needs, had lived in the property since 2006 with her businessman partner Brian McDonagh and their three children until the house was repossessed on February 24th, 2025.McDonagh faces trial before Wicklow Circuit Criminal Court on a charge of wilfully obstructing or interfering with a sheriff and another of producing an article likely to unlawfully intimidate another person on that date. He denies the charges.In a recently published decision, Judge Oisín Quinn said Ooi described the circumstances surrounding the loss of her home as “humiliating and traumatising”. Damages were due to her from the State because of deficiencies in the “execution of the statutory process rather than from any deliberate or high-handed wrongdoing”, he said.The October 2024 warrant appointed Joseph Burke, the Dublin City Sheriff, as “court messenger”, when it should have given authority to Andrew Cullen, court messenger for Wicklow. The validity of the document was also undermined by the lack of review and approval of the Wicklow County Registrar, the judge held.The judge dismissed Ooi’s claims against credit management fund Promontoria Scariff DAC, which had secured the possession order, and debt enforcer Blackwater Asset Management, which assisted in the repossession.Outlining the case background, Quinn said McDonagh purchased Dromin House in 2005 with help from a €3 million loan from First Active plc. The loan was secured by a mortgage over the property, as was a 2007 restructuring loan of about €5 million, the judge said.For the 2007 borrowings, McDonagh completed a statutory declaration stating the property was not a family home for the purpose of the Family Home Protection Act. “Apparently” no repayments have been made since 2013, Quinn said. Separate High Court judgments show McDonagh, along with his brothers Kenneth and Maurice, fell into significant debt after borrowing €21.8 million to build a data centre in Co Wicklow. The project was never built and the failure to repay millions to Ulster Bank led to protracted legal battles and a court declaration that they owed €22 million.Quinn said the interests in the Dromin House mortgages were acquired by Promontoria, which in January 2023 secured an order for possession that gave the family an 18-month grace period to find alternative accommodation. The family’s appeal of the order was dismissed by the High Court in March 2024.Promontoria’s solicitor anticipated taking possession of the house might prove difficult and that the Dublin City Sheriff could help, said the judge. The sheriff agreed to the job, at a price of €17,000.Quinn said the Wicklow registrar and court messenger are legally required to take responsibility for executing orders for possession in their area, but here they “abdicated” to Promontoria and the Dublin City Sheriff and “abandoned” steps normally taken. Meanwhile, Ooi secured a High Court injunction temporarily preventing repossession. The injunction was later discharged in a decision upheld by the Court of Appeal three days before the eviction took place.On the morning of the repossession, Quinn said, Ooi travelled to the Four Courts in Dublin in an unsuccessful bid to halt execution of the order while she applied for a Supreme Court appeal of the injunction refusal. That court later refused her application.Quinn ruled that the absence of any “meaningful” engagement with Ooi or her family in the lead-up to the repossession and the failure to factor in the presence of a minor and a vulnerable adult were a “departure from the standard”. He said the manner of the repossession fell short of the requirements of Article 40.5 of the Constitution, which stipulates that a citizen’s home is inviolable and shall not be entered forcibly except in accordance with the law.