N.B. & Anor -v- C.B. & Anor (Approved)

AND IN THE MATTER OF AN INSTRUMENT CREATING AN ENDURING POWER OF ATTORNEY EXECUTED BY F.B. ON THE 6TH DAY OF AUGUST 2008

2.������ Before the court is a notice of motion seeking an order under s. 10 of the Powers of Attorney Act 1996 registering the enduring power in this case.� That application has given rise to conflict between the five siblings who are children of the donor.� Two of those siblings are the applicants, being the named attorneys.� A third sibling, E.B., supports the application; and the other two siblings are the objecting respondents.

3.������ I was immensely assisted by Mr. Liam O�Connell B.L. for the applicants and by Mr. John Foley, Solicitor, for the respondents, and I would commend both for their excellent and focused cross-examination and submissions.� E.B. also addressed the court in person in support of the attorneys.� I have considered all the material that was duly submitted including all affidavit and oral evidence and oral submissions of the parties.

4.������ Both attorneys are said to be unsuitable.� The objection to J.B. seems to be focused on the point that she went along with N.B. (it is suggested, over-trustingly), and did not make her own inquiries, so it is essentially a derivative objection.� Mr. Foley submits that both attorneys stand or fall together and that is essentially the correct approach in the circumstances of this case.

5.������ The separate point of her living outside the State was only faintly pressed, and indeed was not specifically put to her, but such an objection in itself does not amount to a valid ground of unsuitability especially in a globalised modern world.� It would be an insular court indeed that would see that as a disqualifying problem.� Doubly so here where J.B. was already living abroad at the time the power was executed.