A woman jailed for stealing €500,000 from the school where she worked as a bursar has filed for bankruptcy over an “unsustainable” €1.7 million debt to the school.

The bankruptcy petition of Mary Higgins stated her liabilities exceeded her assets by about €1.77 million, of which about €1.76 million was owed to Mount Sackville secondary school in Chapelizod, Co Dublin.

When her case was mentioned in the High Court’s bankruptcy list on Monday, her barrister, Keith Farry, said he had told her she would have to “engage significantly” with the Insolvency Service of Ireland.

Judge Liam Kennedy said Higgins’s former employer should be notified of the bankruptcy application and he adjourned the matter to June 8th.

In a sworn statement earlier this month, Higgins, from Hawthorn Lawn in Castleknock, Co Dublin, said the main debt arose from a gambling addiction and a theft of funds from the school in respect of which she was convicted last year.

[ ‘She was living a double life’: Bursar of private secondary school jailed for stealing €500,000 ]

She underwent counselling and has been released from prison, she said.

Separate to the criminal proceedings, she said civil proceedings were issued by the former employer and she had consented to a civil judgment concerning the debt.

There was no finding of fraud or any damages awarded, she said. She had assigned her pension and sold her properties at Ashleigh Court and Farmleigh Park, both Castleknock, to repay the debt, she said.

She said she had exhausted her means and the remaining debt was unsustainable debt. She went through the criminal and civil process and therapy, and the overhang of the debt was causing her serious mental health issues, she said.

Higgins was advised she was not eligible for a personal insolvency arrangement as she did not have a secured debt.

In its civil proceedings initiated in 2020, the board of management of the school, where Higgins worked for 24 years until 2017, sought judgment for €2.12 million against her.

Last June, a three-year prison sentence, with two years suspended, was imposed on Higgins after she admitted stealing €500,000 from the school between January 1st, 2012, and March 23rd, 2017.

She had spent 12 years as a pupil at the school and 24 years working there.

Sentencing her at the time, Judge Orla Crowe said Higgins had been in a position of trust, controlled and lodged all the money coming into the school and was the main signatory of its bank account.

Higgins’s life had revolved around the school until her gambling problem spiralled out of control and she committed an “egregious breach of trust”, the judge said.

The offence involved a considerable amount of money over an extended period of time, the judge added.

In mitigation, the judge said, Higgins had pleaded guilty and sought treatment for her gambling problem. Higgins had sold all her assets and signed over her pension to pay back the money she stole and had repaid more than €470,000. She was a carer for her mother and was assessed as at a low risk of reoffending.

The court heard Higgins told gardaí she had hoped and prayed every day for “a big win” to pay the school back, but the hole kept getting deeper.

She told them she spent 36 years at the school, was single, had no children and her job was her life.

Gardaí involved in the case said all the money was taken for gambling and said Higgins had shown remorse and confronted her issues “head on”. She had attended the Rutland Centre and still attended Gamblers Anonymous. She qualified as a counsellor and was providing voluntary counselling to others, the court heard.