How can these cheats now practise as counsellors?

JUSTICE Deirdre Murphy didn’t pull any punches in her ruling on the case taken by Della Kerrigan against her erstwhile friends for the return of the loan she gave them during the property crash.

While Ballyshannon couple Jacqueline and John Keenaghan, whose architectural practice had run into serious difficulty by 2010, sought to persuade the court the €280,000 sum was a gift from their ‘dear’ friend Della Kerrigan, out of her compensation claim arising from a serious motor accident, Justice Murphy ruled it was a loan given by a ‘naïve’ Ms Kerrigan. The judge said the real tragedy of this case was that when Della sought repayment four years after she’d lent the money, the Keenaghans denied the debt, thus casting doubt on Della’s honesty. They made no offer to repay any of the money, even though their finances had stabilised and their adult children, whose education had been ‘entirely funded’ from Della’s cash, were now in a position to help.

The Keenaghans borrowed €100,000 more from Della than they needed to clear their debts. The extra money went to finance their children’s college education and on what’s perhaps the darkest aspect of this case – retraining as counsellors and setting up a counselling business. It’s chilling that out of all the business opportunities available to them, that they chose one that would expose them to people who are vulnerable, people just like Della.

Counselling is a relatively new profession and Minister Simon Harris has made some progress on regulating it against charlatans. But while every profession has bad eggs, the Keenaghans’ metamorphosis into counsellors must raise questions about the porous borders of their new calling, and the ability of people found by a High Court judge to be of low character to rise seamlessly through its ranks.