Illustration By Redmonk

Regular rabble readers may remember immaculately coiffured Dublin ballbag Jay Bourke during the well documented troubles regarding the windup of his Shebeen Chic venture some years ago.

Mr Bourke landed in hot water after irregularities emerged surrounding the timely payment of rent for the South Great George’s Street premises. The restaurant/bar was shut down eventually, after a long protracted battle in the High Court over €92.000 of unpaid VAT, and a valiant but doomed struggle on the part of the 21 employees to preserve their jobs. Those of you with even longer memories may also remember the high-profile battle over the unfair dismissal of Chef Leanne McDowell some years ago, which culminated in the well known Dublin entrepreneur winding up of one of his companies rather than pay the €50.000 awarded to her by an employment appeals tribunal. Did somebody say ballbag?

It would appear however, that no sooner does Mr Bourke jump out of the frying pan than he gets caught in the fire as he now faces a further battle. Mr PJ Lynch, the official liquidator has accused him of knowingly trading in a “reckless manner”, as well as accusing him of intending to defraud the Revenue Commission. Mr Lynch has reported Mr Bourke to the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, and has said he will be applying to the High Court to have him disqualified from running companies in the future. It’s not often that rabble would support state law enforcement institutions but in this case, let’s hope the fucker goes down. True to form, Mr Bourke is vigorously denying everything, including allegedly calling the liquidator “a fucking git”. With papers lodged in the High Court already, it will be interesting to see who ends up with egg on their face.