A v A
| Jurisdiction | Ireland |
| Judge | Mr Justice Max Barrett |
| Judgment Date | 12 January 2023 |
| Neutral Citation | [2023] IEHC 375 |
| Court | High Court |
| Docket Number | [Record No: 2017 26 M] |
[2023] IEHC 375
[Record No: 2017 26 M]
THE HIGH COURT
JUDGMENT of Mr Justice Max Barrett delivered on 12 th January, 2023 .
. Ms A was married to Mr A in the 1980s. They have had a number of children, all of whom are now young adults. Although, when these proceedings were commenced, two of the children were dependent children that situation no longer pertains. These divorce proceedings were commenced by Ms A in 2017, though the marriage seems to have broken down irrevocably some years before that, and the marriage, unfortunately, seems to have been marred for some years by unhappiness. The affidavit evidence of each of the parties is replete with allegations and recriminations about the behaviour and faithfulness of each of the parties which I do not propose to consider in any detail: a lot of what is averred to is ‘he said, she said’ evidence, much of it went untested when each of the parties was in the witness-box – counsel wisely focused on the key issues presenting in the proceedings – and I simply do not know where the truth lies as regards various of the said allegations as made by each of the parties.
. Ms A has worked from time to time at a family business ([Stated Business A] *) that the couple established at the turn of the century. They went into the business as a couple and own a quarter-share of it between them and other family members. That business was referred to at times in the hearings as the ‘golden goose’ because it has yielded an income to the parties sufficient to enable them to make a number of business and other investments over the years. There was some dispute at the hearing as to whether the idea for [Stated Business A] emanated from Ms A or from an accountant to Mr A. I do not think it greatly matters who had the original idea for [Stated Business A]: it is there and it has been a success because of
the combined efforts of Ms A (largely but not exclusively as homemaker) and Mr A (as a farmer and businessperson). I will describe the various other business ventures in which Mr A is involved later below. I will just mention for now that Mr A also has his own farming property which, at present, I understand, is largely farmed by one of the couple's children who has invested money in the farming business even though he does not own the underlying land. I do not understand it to be disputed that at times Ms A has helped on the farm also – for example, she refers in her evidence to how at one point she was out milking cows and she refers elsewhere to feeding calves and working around the farm generally.
. I understood the evidence at the hearing to be that Mr A inherited the family home and farm. However in his latest statement of means Mr A states that as of an unstated date in May 2022 Ms A (as applicant) is the sole owner of the family home and farm in [Stated Place A]. Yet the asset valuation provided by Devaney & Durkin indicates that Mr A is the 100% owner of the family home and farm. As mentioned my own understanding of the evidence was that the family home and farm were inherited by Mr A; however, he knows his own affairs best. Given how I propose to proceed in this case, I do not consider that a great deal turns on this point in any event.
. I was a little unclear following the affidavit and oral evidence of Mr A as to what exactly he thinks his wife has been doing for the last few decades. His evidence, in essence, was that his accountant came up with the idea for [Stated Business A] (one of several ideas that the accountant floated), that the other business successes in which Mr A has become involved were essentially attributable to Mr A (and he certainly gives the impression of being a canny business-person), that his wife has not been of tremendous assistance with [Stated Business A] or otherwise, and that (because she had “ household help”, as Mr A describes it) not a lot of credit falls to be given to her as a homemaker either.
. Though Mr A clearly is the architect of much of the family's financial success (in terms of what he has done with the profits from [Stated Business A] and otherwise), his evidence seemed to me, with all respect, to be a little ungracious when it comes to the woman who has mothered his children, helped to create and manage a family home, and also done some work in the operation of [Stated Business A] (a key contributor to the money/property that the parties have accrued over the years). I accept that Ms A's ongoing role in [Stated Business A] was not critical – she herself avers in her affidavit of 23 rd March 2017, para.8, that “ I say that my primary duties are providing general assistance to the running of the [business] …such as transporting [clients] …and such like”. But if it was not critical it was clear from her evidence that this was because she was busy with a relatively large family. And I note that she continues to draw an income from [Stated Business A] (testament to her having been actively involved in its start-up).
. I must admit to having found it somewhat unusual that, after more than three decades of marriage, when I would expect that each party's life history would be well known to the other, Mr A (in the witness-box) purported not to know of his wife's experience of working with a nationally known employer in the years before she married. His evidence in this regard was, with all respect, not credible – though at one with the thrust of all of his evidence, which was that his wife has never done very much. In her affidavit of 17 th November 2021, Ms A avers, amongst other matters, that “ The Respondent…demeans me at every opportunity. He is constantly making derogatory comments….He is constantly belittling me. The Respondent has also spat at me”. I must admit that I find such assertions to be the more credible when I have regard to what seem to me to have been consistent attempts by Mr A across the entirety of his evidence to diminish his wife into something of a nothing who has never done anything. (I hasten to add that I view her as a decent woman who has worked hard to make a homelife for her family in marriage that, regrettably, appears to have been marred by unhappiness).
. As should be clear by now, it seems to me from all the evidence that I have read and heard that I consider this to have been a marriage of two equal parties with differing strengths, Mr A as a businessperson, Ms A as a homemaker. It was an unhappy (even greatly unhappy) marriage at times and I suspect that there have sometimes been harsh words on both sides. Even so, it is a marriage that has subsisted for over three decades and produced children of whom (if I might respectfully observe) both parties can rightly be proud. But those children did not raise themselves, they did not cook their meals and wash their clothes themselves, they did not get to and from school and after-school and do a myriad of other things by themselves. Ms A may have had “ household help” but I do not doubt from her evidence that the primary task of making a home for her family and rearing the children fell to her. It was striking too that one of the reasons for her seeking to be adequately looked after from a financial perspective following on the divorce was that so she could visit a child here in Dublin and another couple of children who live abroad. That kind of mother-child relationship does not, if I might use a colloquialism ‘grow on trees’. It comes about through the hard work of good mothering.
. There is suggestion in Mr A's affidavit evidence that after the children were born Ms A “ would often stay in bed for most of the day”. I do not know if it is meant by this that (i) Ms A, after each of her children were born would sometimes take to bed, or (ii) whether the suggestion is that after all of her children were born Ms A has been in the habit of spending all day in bed. As to (i), I find it not at all surprising and thoroughly understandable that a mother who had recently given birth and who was nursing a child (and with other children running about in later years) would sometimes be so completely exhausted that she would take to bed to relax and sleep for a time. As to (ii), I just do not believe that Ms A has spent the better part of her married life in bed. Her children did not rear and feed and clothe themselves.
. When it came to who was the more involved in the day-to-day detail of the children's upbringing, I found the evidence as to the unpaid school fees to be rather telling. At one time there was a ‘hiccup’ in the payment of school fees for one of the children. In her evidence Ms A was completely au fait with how the issue had arisen, how embarrassing it had been for her when one of the nuns at the school took her aside to indicate that fees had not been paid, and how the matter had been resolved. By contrast, Mr A, in his oral evidence, seemed to want to take the credit for having sorted matters out but seemed very much less certain of the detail of what had occurred. What this suggested to me was that Ms A was completely au fait with the relevant detail because she had been directly and intimately involved in what had occurred whereas Mr A had not.
. As I said at the close of the hearings, it seemed to me from the evidence that was proffered before me that this was very much a ‘traditional-style’ marriage. As I explained on the day, what I meant by this was that it seemed to me that the parties were joint partners in a marriage in which (save for [Stated Business A] in which Ms A was directly involved in its start-up and has provided some level of ongoing assistance) Mr A was the party who ‘went out into the world’ and deployed the family income and assets to make the family fortune what it is today. But of course Mr A was freed to do so, and not tied down into...
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