Martin ‘The Viper’ Foley has had the stay on the mandatory sale of his house by the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) extended for nearly two weeks, with his wife to use that period to instruct her own legal team.

The house at Cashel Avenue in Kimmage, southwest Dublin, has been the subject of a prolonged legal dispute between the veteran gangland criminal and Cab, after the agency was granted permission to seize the property in 2014 to settle an almost €1 million outstanding tax debt.

An 18-month stay was put in place in March 2025 because his wife and then nine-year-old daughter lived in the property.

The stay was due to expire on Thursday but was extended for a day to allow Foley to seek new legal representation after the court heard on Tuesday that his solicitor had “passed away suddenly” last weekend.

Foley was previously granted an opportunity to appeal the order allowing Cab to sell the home. However, the appeal hearing is set to be heard in December, which is outside the period of the existing stay. He is therefore seeking a longer-term extension of the stay.

On Friday, High Court judge Cian Ferriter ordered that a full hearing of this application will be heard on September 23rd, and put a “short” extension of the stay in place to prevent the sale of the property until that date.

While Foley again represented himself on Friday, the court heard that he had successfully engaged a new legal team of solicitors and a barrister.

His wife, Sonya, made a separate request that a longer stay be placed to allow her to engage her own solicitors but the request was refused.

The judge said Sonya Doyle, also known as Sonya Foley, had sufficient time in the past 18 months to secure legal representation and that it was very late to be making the application.

It is understood Sonya Doyle is set to argue that she owns half of the home, which is registered to Foley and his first wife, and that therefore it should not be sold.

The Viper – a name given to him by the media – now runs an eponymous debt enforcement company and the Kimmage property is his primary residence with his wife and daughter.

The judge said the nearly two-week period between the two sittings would allow Foley and his wife time to prepare to a full hearing of the application for a longer stay on the sale of the property until the appeal.

Shaula Connaughton-Deeny, for Cab, told the court there was “no possibility” the agency could sell the home before the 23rd, and that it had taken no steps towards selling it, so it would not object to extending the stay for a short period.

The judge said he would extend the stay until the next hearing, but that the full hearing “will be proceeding on that date” regardless of whether the Foley and his wife are represented.

Foley previously told the court that he and his family would be homeless if Cab seized the home, and that he would be willing to engage in a mortgage to rent scheme, whereby Cab could sell the house, but he would live in it with his wife and child and make a monthly contribution through a payment plan.

At an earlier hearing he also offered to hand over to Cab “the benefit of two defamation actions” he is taking against the BBC and Penguin Books. He claimed the house was inherited from his mother and that it is not the proceeds of crime.

The Circuit Civil Court was told this was not an issue in this case, which relates to an outstanding tax bill.

Martin Foley has more than 60 convictions, including for assault, robbery and possession of weapons. He was part of the criminal gang led by the late Martin Cahill, known as “The General”, and has survived several attempts on his life.