EXCLUSIVE | 

Liam Byrne’s fire-damaged home goes on sale for €120k after CAB seizure

Property seized by CAB goes under the hammer for €120k

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This is the fire-damaged property of mob boss Liam Byrne which is set to go under the hammer to the highest bidder.

From the outside, the house looks a steal at just €120,000, an absolute bargain in Dublin’s soaring house market.

However, behind the hall door, the damage that was done during an arson attack, suspected to have been ordered by Byrne while the Criminal Assets Bureau were attempting to seize the property, can be seen.

Blackened walls, cracked tiles, damaged floors and ceilings will all need repair – and the house which was gutted by the fire is sure to be gutted again by any prospective buyers.

The remnants of Byrne’s gaudy taste and lifestyle can just be made out with giant silver mirror floor tiles and mirrored walls in the living rooms, a jacuzzi corner bath and CCTV cameras hanging from the walls outside.

The property, at Grangeview Road in Clondalkin, was bought by Liam Byrne in 2006 for €230,000 but he never lived there, instead purchasing another home around the corner from his parents, James and Sadie Byrne, at Raleigh Square in Crumlin.

When the house was first identified by CAB investigations into Byrne, the court was told that a cousin of his wife Simoan McEnroe was living there.

As the CAB case proceeded, members of the Byrne organisation, including Sean McGovern and Liam Byrne, realised they were likely to lose a number of homes to the State.

Believing they had worked hard for the properties they owned, Gardaí suspect they plotted in the background to cause as much damage to the homes in order to reduce their value.

At McGovern’s home the fixtures and fittings, including a kitchen, fireplace and worktops, were ripped from the walls and even light-fittings and plug sockets were removed.

At the Clondalkin property, gardaí were phoned with reports that two men had been seen kicking in the front door and when a CAB officer attended it for an inspection he found doors, windows and fixtures and fitting smashed along with water pipes and sanitary ware.

In 2018, the High Court sought guarantees from Maria Byrne, a sister of Liam, that the house in Raleigh Square that she was due to hand over would remain intact.

By February 2019, a receiver was appointed over the Clondalkin and Kildare Road properties and the house was fully seized by the CAB in 2020, who tried to put it up for sale with a price tag of €320,000, before any further damage was done.

However, the house was fire-bombed in the middle of the night and was set ablaze as firefighters were called to the area.

A petrol bomb had been used in the attack on the property and locals reported that a car was reversed into the property after midnight and set alight causing the huge damage which can be seen in our pictures.

The fire damage is reflected in the drop in value of the house from €320,000 a few years ago to €120,000 today. But with house prices soaring again, it is sure to attract a shrewd investor with enough change to put it right.

The Byrne organisation, the Irish and UK wing of the Kinahan Cartel, have been under fire themselves for years, with authorities clamping down on their activities.

Liam Byrne was recently told that a Spanish Court is backing a request to extradite him to the UK, where he is wanted on weapons charges along with his nephew Jack Kavanagh, who is fighting his own extradition from Spain.

Both are set to go on trial along with Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh, Jack’s father, for a plot to hand over weapons which went horribly wrong.

The plot centres around attempts by Kavanagh to do an underhand plea deal with cops in order to get a reduced sentence as he faced drug and money laundering charges.

Police nabbed the weapons but did no deal with Kavanagh, and a fresh case against him features messages from the Encrochat network between the group as they organised the plans for the seizure.

Peadar Keating, Kavanagh’s right-hand-man in Ireland, is also expected to be extradited to face charges in relation to the plot.

Liam Byrne was picked up in Majorca as he flew there over the summer to holiday with his family. He was arrested in a restaurant and has been in custody in Palma ever since.

Byrne fled Dublin for Birmingham in 2016 after the first raids on his Raleigh Square pad by the CAB in March, a month after his brother David was shot dead at the Regency Hotel.

He moved to Dosthill Road in a house linked to millionaire race fixer Maurice Sines. He came under investigation by the National Crime Agency probing organised crime in Liverpool, who are understood to have identified a number of investments he made into the property industry there.

Byrne fled to Dubai after his brother-in-law Kavanagh got a hefty 21-year sentence for his role at the top of a drugs gang using improvised machinery to import cocaine into the UK and money back out.

He remained in Dubai for months out of reach from the law but made the trip to Majorca, where his family have properties in the Cala D’Or region. There, he was arrested as he ate a bowl of pasta with his children.