Coolmore accountant and financial adviser Eddie Irwin told the High Court on Thursday that a KPMG tax adviser was not passing information about the Thomson-Moore’s tax affairs to him without their knowledge.

An email previously read out in court from Eddie Irwin to John Magnier on 15 September reported an “off the record report” from the KPMG tax consultant.

However on Thursday, Mr Irwin told the court there was “no question” of the tax consultant “keeping me in the loop of any confidential information”.

Eddie Irwin told the court that he was drafted into the Barne Estate dealings by John Magnier in August 2023 in order to “keep an eye on it” and “keep the pressure on Jerome [Casey]", the Coolmore accountant who was handling much of the communications with solicitors and estate agents in the wake of the alleged handshake deal between Richard Thomson-Moore and Mr Magnier.

'Deeply involved'

Mr Irwin ultimately ended up being deeply involved in the Barne Estate contested sale.

John Magnier and his children JP Magnier and Katherine Wachman allege that Richard Thomson-Moore, Barne Estate Ltd and two Jersey-registered companies broke a binding deal to sell the 751ac estate to him for €15m in August 2023 and broke an exclusivity agreement by agreeing to sell the estate to construction magnate Maurice Regan.

Mr Regan agreed to pay €22.25m for the estate, some €7.5m more than Magnier’s alleged deal at €15m.

Counsel for Richard Thomson-Moore, Martin Hayden, put it to Mr Irwin that he was “effectively a fixer” for Mr Magnier.

Irwin conceded that he has been called in by Mr Magnier “when things go wrong”, but he rejected the label of being a “fixer”, saying: “I do a job for Mr Magnier”, referring to being a project manager when required in order to get work done in Mr Magnier and Coolmore’s best interest.

Mr Irwin, who is an accountant and financial adviser to Coolmore and the Magnier family, told Martin Hayden, when asked, that there is no formal hierarchy in Coolmore.

“We don’t have fancy titles and we don’t have a hierarchical structure,” he said.

Called in

Mr Irwin told the court on Thursday that he was called in because of the “abusive call” by Maurice Regan to David Wachman on 29 August, a week after John Magnier and Richard Thomson-Moore shook hands on what Mr Magnier claims was a binding deal to buy Barne for €15m.

In that call, Irwin said, Maurice Regan made threats to “upscuttle” that deal and said he would “offer as much as he had to to get the [Magnier] deal stopped”.

Mr Irwin was asked about whether a KPMG tax consultant was feeding information to Coolmore about the Thomson-Moores’ tax affairs.

The court was previously told the Coolmore personnel introduced Richard Thomson-Moore and his wife to the KPMG consultant in order to get tax advice on the alleged sale of Barne Estate.

An email previously read out in court from Eddie Irwin to John Magnier on 15 September, which said Mr Irwin had got an "off the record report" from the consultant and "the Thomson-Moores do not know he is keeping me in the loop”.

Martin Hayden put it to Mr Irwin that “because you introduced KPMG to the Thompson-Moores and because Coolmore is a big client of KPMG, that was going to give you some inside track or enticement to be kept in the loop?”

“Absolutely not,” Mr Irwin replied.

He told the court: “I'd like to put on the record at this point, because I think a very honourable man’s reputation is being defamed here", adding that there was "no question" of the tax expert "keeping me in the loop of any confidential information that he got from any other client without their permission”.

Mr Irwin told Mr Hayden that his email to John Magnier was “giving him the breadth of knowledge that I had, not anything that was disclosed to me separately by [the consultant]”.

Later, Mr Irwin reiterated: “I didn't obtain any information from [the consultant] that I wasn't entitled to.”

The case continues under Mr Justice Max Barrett.