In the High Court on Monday, liquidators appointed to the companies controlled by Jeffrey Leo asked the High Court to rule as void a contract between IPAS and a company called Utmasta which was granted a new contract in January.
Utmasta is now at the centre of a dispute involving the liquidators and claims that Leo was attempting to move money around different entities, including Utmasta whose mysterious origins I was the first to report on. The background to all of this has been examined here for some time.
However, while the contract given to Utmasta is under examination, the High Court heard on Monday that a new and yet unnamed contractor has been appointed to take over the running of the asylum accommodation at Dundrum House. Who that is we do not yet know, but there is no indication as yet that the use of the former hotel as an IPAS centre will come to an end.
There is a curious connection between the people who own the site at Brittas, subject to ongoing Circuit Court proceedings that resume on Friday, and Jeffrey Leo and the company Steelworks Investments, which was at the heart of the court proceedings centred on Dundrum House, and Leo’s business relationship with the Wennings family. Steelworks was wound up in September.
Richard, Keith and David McDermott, who are all involved as owners or company officers with Mullnassa and Threshford, and who are owners of the Brittas site, are also directors of Inktech Vision which is still registered as the owner of the Pillo Hotel in Ashbourne. The hotel was reported in August 2025 as having been bought by the ‘McDermott Group.’
There is no official company registration for a ‘McDermott Group’ so presumably it refers to a list of companies owned by the McDermotts which include major IPAS contractors Polarside, Fairkeep, and Boogran, who have received tens of millions in payments from the State through their ownership and management of the D Hotel in Drogheda and other former hospitality centres.
Keith McDermott is the Secretary of Inktech Vision and Richard and David McDermott are directors of Inktech. They have been directors since appointed in July this year by Jeffrey Leo who himself resigned as director only on August 28, several weeks at least after the sale of the Pillo Hotel was completed. Inktech is still registered as entirely owned by Steelworks.
Leo was already embroiled in legal difficulties at the time as the company Steelworks Investments which owned Inktech and therefore owned the Pillo Hotel was the subject of a major High Court case. The nominal owners of Wennings Investments, a large American company and two thirds owner of Steelworks, had taken the action against Leo.
The Wennings claimed that Leo had in effect defrauded them of $60 million which he was supposed to invest for them in Ireland through Steelworks. Steelworks had managed to acquire quite a portfolio of property, including the Dundrum House Hotel which was at the centre of the court proceedings but also the Pillo and was the full or majority owner of several companies including Inktech, and Brogan Capital Ventures which had been initially established by members of the famous Dublin GAA family.
Inktech is still registered as the owner of the Pillo Hotel and has been since 2016. Inktech were registered as the owner of the property on September 27, 2016, but neither they nor Jeffrey Leo were mentioned in news reports of the purchase of the hotel. In May 2016 it was announced that the Brogan brothers, Bernard and Alan, who were then part of the great Dublin football team, had ‘snapped’ up the Pillo for somewhere around €8 million large.
They were also said to have bought the Dundrum House, where Jeff also landed up, for €2.75 million earlier in the year. Bernard Brogan Senior, himself a twice winner of the All Ireland and father of the lads, was appointed as a director of Inktech on April 5, 2016. Which was on the same day as Jeffrey Leo was appointed as both director and secretary. Leo then had an address at the exclusive K Club in Straffan.
When I reported the Brogans involvement with companies and hotels which ended up being effectively owned by Jeffrey Leo Bernard Brogan junior insisted that “Neither myself nor any of the Brogan family are involved in this hotel or any other hotels!” The family had previously been reported as having been involved in buying hotels and members had given interviews about buying the hotels.
While there is no suggestion that either the Brogans or the McDermotts are currently connected to Jeffrey Leo, and his ongoing travails, they certainly have previously had a connection with him – they were directors of the same companies at the same time.
The property folio shows that Inktech is still the owner of the Pillo Hotel. The three McDermotts remain as officers of that company but the company itself is still registered with the CRO as 100% owned by Steelworks Investments. That company is at the heart of the court proceedings involving Jeffrey Leo.
There is a note on the property register from December 20, 2024, which refers to “Proceedings affecting the interest of Inktech Vision Limited in the property … the High Court, Record Number 2024/6581 in a cause or matter of James Wenning, Mary Wenning and Wenning Holdings Limited (Plaintiff(s))and Jeffery Leo, Leo Financial Services Limited, Steelworks Investments Limited, Inktech Vision Limited, Brogan Capital.”
Inktech’s address interestingly, since July, is now 71-73 Rock Road, Blackrock, County Dublin on July 7. This is the same address as all of the other key companies in the ‘McDermott Group’ including the two companies Mullnassa and Threshford who are respondents in the Brittas case which followed the ongoing attempt of South Dublin County Council to have an enforcement order against the allegedly unauthorised site there complied with.