After that hearing, Mr Moloney made a series of admissions and pledged to make “restitution” to Bóthar from his assets, which include a family home in Newport, Co Tipperary, an investment property and a number of pensions.

When the matter returned to the High Court today, Mr Moloney sought an adjournment to allow his application for legal aid to the Law Centre in Limerick to be processed.

He said the Law Centre had not given him a timescale for when a decision on his application would be made.

Mr Moloney’s assets have been frozen by order of the court and cannot be reduced below €1.1m.

In his affidavit, he said his sole income since resigning from the charity in February was a €203-per-week illness benefit.

He had been on a salary of €96,000 at the charity, where he began working in 1995 and was chief executive for eight years.

The court heard Mr Moloney will soon also be facing family law proceedings as his wife, Olive Moloney, wishes to assert an interest in some assets which are in her husband’s name.

“What she is seeking in her proceedings is property adjustment orders so that proper provision can be made for both her and their dependent children,” her counsel, Maria Lane BL, told the court.

Bóthar sought an adjournment of six weeks to allow it to continue its investigations.

Its counsel, Frank Beatty SC, instructed by Sweeney McGann Solicitors, said the investigations were “complicated” and it looked as though the charity would now have to join additional third parties to the case against Mr Moloney.

In an affidavit last month, Mr Moloney claimed misappropriated funds were also given to two of the charity’s co-founders, the late Peter Ireton and former journalist Billy Kelly, as well as English businessman Jim Farrand.

Neither Mr Kelly (68) nor Mr Farrand (74) have responded to requests for comment from the Irish Independent. Mr Ireton (68) denied any impropriety just days before he was found dead at his home in Limerick in tragic circumstances on April 19.

Mr Beatty said Bóthar was anxious to pursue the assets of Mr Moloney and that any interest his wife had in those assets would be determined by the family law proceedings.

Mr Justice Senan Allen adjourned the matter to July 14, saying any applications to join other defendants could be dealt with then.

The judge said he was deferring a decision on whether to join Mrs Moloney as a notice party to the proceedings against her husband.

Mr Justice Allen said it seemed there were issues to be resolved around the beneficial ownership of assets registered in Mr Moloney’s name and that, on the face of things, the family law courts were the appropriate forum for doing so.

There is no allegation of wrongdoing against Mrs Moloney.

In legal filings, Mr Moloney valued his family home at €500,000, with €58,000 left to pay on the mortgage.

He valued an investment property at €150,000, with a mortgage of €90,000 still to be paid.

Mr Moloney also listed the overall value of three pensions he had with Bóthar at €724,000.

He has accepted that one of these pensions, created in 2016, was fraudulent.

However, Bóthar has also questioned the validity of payments into the other pensions.

Mr Moloney accepts he misappropriated large sums of money from the charity between 1999 and 2020 but does not accept responsibility for all of the €1.1m taken.

He claims he spent the money he took on his lifestyle but has been unable to provide a detailed breakdown of this spending.

At a previous hearing, Mr Justice Allen said: “The vast majority of the money that was taken was taken in cash. Regular small suitcases full over the years. So, it is not surprising Mr Moloney was not able to account in detail for the dispersal.”

The misappropriation of funds from the charity is the subject of an ongoing garda investigation.

In a lengthy affidavit, Mr Moloney detailed elaborate schemes he claims he and Mr Ireton used to steal donations.

He claimed they concocted fake projects in Africa and Eastern Europe near the beginning or end of the charity’s financial year, allowing them to avoid scrutiny. The fake projects were never included in annual reports.

Mr Moloney claimed that between them, the two men shared around €505,000 in cash which was purported to have been given to projects run by nuns in Tanzania and Zambia.

He admitted preparing false documentation, which he alleged Mr Ireton would “proof read”, to make the projects appear legitimate.

Money for the fake projects was withdrawn from Bóthar’s bank accounts using cheques made out to cash.

Mr Moloney also said more than €240,000 was taken from donations and given to staff as Christmas bonuses over a 20-year period, with the money being accounted for by associating it with fake projects in Kosovo and Albania.

He said staff were unaware of the fraudulent activity and believed the bonuses were legitimate.

Mr Moloney also alleged he, Mr Kelly and Mr Farrand “concocted” English company Agriculture Innovation Consultants Limited, which never traded, to facilitate payments for their benefit.

This company received Stg£110,000 from Bóthar in 2018 and 2019, of which Mr Moloney says he got Stg£36,000. He alleged Mr Farrand received Stg£20,000 and that Mr Kelly received Stg£40,000. He claimed Mr Kelly recently gave the Stg£40,00 back to Bóthar by way of restitution.