A 2013 punch in Ireland just cost Brisbane's $176 million man his real estate licence

Queensland’s Office of Fair Trading has cancelled the real estate licence of McGrath Bulimba’s Tony O’Doherty in connection with a decade-old assault conviction in Ireland. McGrath has publicly supported his decision to appeal, prompting broader discussion. 

Tony O'Doherty, a McGrath Bulimba agent who sold $176.7 million across 79 properties in the twelve months to early September, has had his Queensland real estate licence cancelled by the Office of Fair Trading over a 2013 assault conviction handed down in Ireland late last year. 

The revocation and O'Doherty's ongoing appeal against it were reported by Property Noise and separately confirmed by Brisbane Times, which covered the case on 9 September under the headline "One-punch assault overseas catches up with Brisbane real estate agent." McGrath has publicly backed O'Doherty through the appeal, arguing the licensing framework does not adequately account for the age of the conduct, the time that has passed, or his record since.

The conviction itself is a matter of public court record. Limerick Circuit Criminal Court heard that O'Doherty, then 23 and now 35, punched a man named James Fitzgerald outside a nightclub in Newcastle West, County Limerick, in February 2013, after Fitzgerald had thrown a glass. Fitzgerald struck his head on a door as he fell, was unconscious for up to 45 minutes, and suffered a fractured skull and a brain bleed, along with ongoing headaches, low mood, anxiety and post-traumatic stress, according to reporting in the Limerick Post. 

O'Doherty was sentenced late last year to two years' imprisonment, fully suspended, and had already settled a related civil claim for €40,000. Judge Colin Daly is reported to have noted O'Doherty had time to walk away before the confrontation. O'Doherty has lived in Australia for around 15 years and, prior to joining McGrath's Bulimba office in late 2024, was a top-performing principal at Belle Property Queensland.

The underlying conviction is independently confirmed through Irish court reporting, and the Queensland licence decision itself is now corroborated by two separate outlets, Property Noise and Brisbane Times, rather than resting on a single account.

What the case does put squarely in front of the industry, regardless of how O'Doherty's individual appeal resolves, is a question every state's licensing regime has to answer in some form: how far back should a regulator look, and how much should an otherwise clean record since count against a conviction from more than a decade earlier. 

Queensland's framework treats a "fit and proper person" test as an ongoing condition of holding a licence, not a one-time check at entry, which is precisely why a conviction from 2013 can still surface in 2026. McGrath's public position, that the current settings don't distinguish well enough between historical conduct and present conduct, is an argument about where that line should sit, not a claim that the conviction didn't happen or wasn't serious.

For principals and networks, the more useful takeaway sits away from this specific case. 

Any agency with agents who have a criminal history, however old, should understand that state licensing bodies retain broad discretion to revisit fitness to hold a licence at any point, not only at initial registration, and that a network's decision to publicly back an agent through an appeal is itself a reputational position with consequences either way. 

Whether Queensland's current settings strike the right balance is now a live question. Whether McGrath's stance ages well depends on how the appeal lands.