Shane Filan was declared bankrupt in a UK court on 14 June 2012. Westlife had earned over £31 million, and of course singer Fila had a share of this.

Like many business people in Ireland since 2008, Filan had a disastrous experience on the property market. He went into busines with his brother Finnbar, but when the market crashed the brothers were left with debts of well over 5 million euros.

The two brothers claim that they had no choice but to declare bankruptcy. Many other Irish propery investors have also used the British courts to become officially bankrupt, which effectively means they can wipe out their debts and start again. In Ireland it is much more difficult to do this, and bankruptcy is a major handicap to making a new start.

Westlife are due to tour again this June, which should help the singer to start mending his fortunes again.