Brian Ormond in car park showdown with The Viper
Dramatic encounter in pub car park over alleged debt
TELEVISION presenter Brian Ormond arranged to meet a notorious Dublin criminal turned debt collector in a pub car park recently to tell him to stop calling around to his home.
Martin ‘The Viper’ Foley, who has more than 40 convictions, was reportedly hired by an associate of Ormond to recoup an alleged unpaid debt.
Ormond denies he owes any money and confronted the former associate of Martin ‘The General’ Cahill to demand he stay away from his home.
The dramatic meeting took place in the car park of a public house in Clondalkin, in the south-west of the capital, with gardaí looking on at a distance from a squad car.
A source close to the TV personality said: ‘the purpose of that was to say “stop calling around to my house, I don’t owe this money”.’
The RTÉ game show host was upset when Foley was hired to collect the debt, according to a report in the Sunday World.
Contrary to reports, the source said Brian did not agree to repay any money to Foley, who has convictions for assault, robbery and possessing offensive weapons.
The 34-year- old was reportedly horrified to learn that Foley’s debt recovery van had recently pulled up outside his home on the outskirts of Dublin.
Sources close to the TV star con-
‘It’s a story he’s very upset about’
firmed that Viper Debt Recovery and Repossession Services had called around to Ormond’s house, where he lives with his wife Pippa Ormond O’Connor and their son Ollie, aged 15 months.
Solicitor Gerald Kean, acting as spokesman for the TV presenter, told the Irish Daily Mail yesterday that a number of matters reported by the media were ‘fundamentally wrong’ and that Ormond was very upset about the reports.
Mr Kean said Ormond ‘does not accept that he owes money to anybody, that’s the first thing.Normally if a debt is due it’s because a court has ordered it,’ which hadn’t happened,’ the solicitor said.
‘He doesn’t accept that he owes money. He is not being sued by anybody.’
‘He has not agreed to pay back any money to anybody including Martin Foley nor has he paid any money to anybody,’ Mr Kean said.
‘To agree something you have to admit that you owe something,’ Mr Kean said.
‘He never agreed to pay back any money to anybody, certainly not to Martin Foley and he hasn’t agreed to pay back any money to Martin Foley.’
‘It’s a story he’s very upset about. Brian doesn’t know where it’s coming from. He’s not happy that that would be out there.’
Mr Kean said they did not have a number of meetings – as had been reported – and no repayment scheme was agreed between them.
The TV presenter has been on Irish television screens since the early 2000s.
He has presented You’re A Star, the talent show which decided Ireland’s Eurovision entrant for a number of years, You’re A Star Plus, The Big Money Game Show, which RTÉ axed after two years, and Satitude, a Saturday morning children’s programme.
His 2011 wedding to model Pippa O’Connor at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel was filmed for a fly-on-the-wall RTÉ documentary.
The guest list included celebrity couples Robbie and Claudine Keane, Andrea Roche and Rob White and Rosanna Davison and Wesley Quirke.
A source close to Ormond told the newspaper that ‘Brian’s family were totally horrified that the van was parked up outside his home and Martin Foley was knocking on the door’.
‘So he agreed to meet up with Foley … in a bid to sort out the situation,’ the newspaper reported.
Foley is a legitimate debt collector whose debt recovery van is emblazoned with the logo for Viper Debt Recovery & Repossession Services.
The 61-year-old is not breaking the law and in 2007 Foley’s firm was registered with the companies office.
Efforts to contact Viper Debt Recovery & Repossession Services were unsuccessful last night.
Calls to two telephone numbers posted on the company’s website were not answered.