The state has been given the thumbs up to develop the €350m Opera Centre shopping mall in Limerick. The state owns half of the development, through nationalised Anglo Irish Bank, with the remainder owned by developers Jerry O'Reilly, David Courtney and Terry Sweeney.
An Bord Pleanála approved the scheme, subject to 17 conditions, despite its inspector's recommendation to refuse it. The centre will be the largest in the Midwest when it's completed.
Anglo acquired its stake in the venture in 2007 and planned to syndicate it to private clients but failed to do so.
The Sunday Tribune has also learned that the state has a 90% interest in the €110m South King Street retail opposite St Stephen's Green shopping centre in Dublin. The stake was acquired by Anglo Irish Bank with a view to syndicating it to private clients but it is understood that it failed to do so, leaving the state with stakes in two office schemes in London, a shopping centre in Liverpool and a redevelopment property in Surrey.
It was previously reported that the state has a stake in Arnotts after Anglo again failed to syndicate its stake in the retailer. Banks earned large fees from the syndication of properties to private clients during boom years.
Sunday Tribune
www.buckplanning.ie
Monday, 3 August 2009
DDDA saddled with big Ringsend losses
The annual report of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) is expected to show huge losses on the value of a planned project it is under taking with property developer Bernard McNamara and financier Derek Quinlan.
The publication of the report of the agency has been expected for some time, and an Oireachtas committee was promised accounts by last June. However, sources last week said that the annual report was not now expected until the autumn.
Niamh Brennan, a University College Dublin professor who is an expert on corporate governance, was appointed chairman of the authority last spring.
According to informed sources, she has been spending a significant amount of time in the DDDA’s headquarters, conducting a thorough examination of many of the authority’s activities.
Last week, Paul Maloney, the authority’s chief executive, retired after a board meeting. His contract was not due to expire until next May, and reports suggested that he would be paid a €150,000 lump sum to cover his salary until then.
The DDDA entered a joint venture with McNamara and Quinlan to acquire the former Irish Glass Bottle site in Ringsend for €412 million. Like many other undeveloped sites, the value of this site has now collapsed, leaving the state body nursing a large paper loss. According to one source, the authority could find itself ‘‘effectively broke’’.
The DDDA will now await details of the valuation methodology which Nama will impose on property assets, as a guide to how it should value its share of the Glass Bottle site in its accounts.
Finance for the Glass Bottle site was provided by Anglo Irish Bank.
At the time, Sean FitzPatrick was chairman of Anglo and also a member of the DDDA board.
Sunday Business Post
www.buckplanning.ie
The publication of the report of the agency has been expected for some time, and an Oireachtas committee was promised accounts by last June. However, sources last week said that the annual report was not now expected until the autumn.
Niamh Brennan, a University College Dublin professor who is an expert on corporate governance, was appointed chairman of the authority last spring.
According to informed sources, she has been spending a significant amount of time in the DDDA’s headquarters, conducting a thorough examination of many of the authority’s activities.
Last week, Paul Maloney, the authority’s chief executive, retired after a board meeting. His contract was not due to expire until next May, and reports suggested that he would be paid a €150,000 lump sum to cover his salary until then.
The DDDA entered a joint venture with McNamara and Quinlan to acquire the former Irish Glass Bottle site in Ringsend for €412 million. Like many other undeveloped sites, the value of this site has now collapsed, leaving the state body nursing a large paper loss. According to one source, the authority could find itself ‘‘effectively broke’’.
The DDDA will now await details of the valuation methodology which Nama will impose on property assets, as a guide to how it should value its share of the Glass Bottle site in its accounts.
Finance for the Glass Bottle site was provided by Anglo Irish Bank.
At the time, Sean FitzPatrick was chairman of Anglo and also a member of the DDDA board.
Sunday Business Post
www.buckplanning.ie
Developers' woes hit council funds
CASH-strapped local councils are owed millions of euro by developers who have gone bust or stalled building projects during the property crash.
Banks are not the only agencies circling the remains of their ill-timed building ventures. Some local authorities are going to court to recover "development levies" owed by builders while others are slapping enforcement orders on those who have yet to pay up.
Local authorities were able to rake in millions during the boom by charging a development levy for each new building. At its height, the revenue generated by the tax reached more than €670m.
Unsurprisingly, Dublin local authorities have been left nursing the biggest losses. South Dublin County Council has served enforcement orders against 51 builders who owe €3m in development fees. That is a fraction of the €33m the council was due to earn in levies over the next few years.
Fingal County Council in north Dublin is chasing €4m in development levies which are overdue. The council is due to earn €66m in phased payments in the coming years.
Dublin City Council was due to be paid €26m last year in levies but has been paid only a fraction of that sum. The city has started enforcement proceedings in 87 cases.
Several councils contacted by the Sunday Independent declined to name the developers they are chasing for legal reasons.
It has emerged that four companies linked to former Fianna Fail councillor Ger Killaly owe more than €1.7m in development levies to Offaly Co Council, which he once chaired.
The debt includes a €642,000 levy for a partially-built hotel complex, the building of which has since been abandoned. The estate agent and his business partner recently settled a legal action taken by former associates in a land deal and were sued by AIB for €15m.
In Roscommon, Laragan Developments, owned by local builder Alan Hanly, owes €500,000 in development levies to the local authority. The company also owes €200,000 to Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown Co Council and €44,000 to Leitrim.
Mr Hanly's company was placed in examinership earlier this year, leaving depositors who bought into a new apartment scheme high and dry. The developer, meanwhile, is currently building a mansion in Roscommon.
Around the country, Meath Co Council, which spawned a building phenomenon in the heart of the commuter belt zone, estimates that it is owed €39.5m in levies.
As the council reckons that half of those developments won't be finished, it plans to write off €20m in bad debts. Although it hasn't chased up the developers who have proceeded with enforcement orders, it is chasing them for the money in other ways.
Louth Co Council is owed €4.2m in development levies as of the end of June, has issued 33 enforcement notices, referred 66 for legal action and prosecuted six companies.
Limerick City Council is owed €2.7m in development levies and has so far issued one enforcement order to recover €587,125. The council has issued proceedings in the District Court to recover 21 other debts.
Galway Co Council is owed €8m to date and has issued enforcement proceedings to recover €188,000.
Usually developers pay the levies on a phased basis over time, with the last chunk due on completion of a property when a letter of compliance is issued. Since the property slump has left half-finished developments littering the country, some developers are unable or unwilling to pay huge fees for developments that they cannot sell. Several councils are now struggling to plug the gaping financial holes that have emerged as developments stall or go to the wall.
The construction industry has warned that levies will have to be reduced as the development sector can no longer afford them.
Irish Independent
www.buckplanning.ie
Banks are not the only agencies circling the remains of their ill-timed building ventures. Some local authorities are going to court to recover "development levies" owed by builders while others are slapping enforcement orders on those who have yet to pay up.
Local authorities were able to rake in millions during the boom by charging a development levy for each new building. At its height, the revenue generated by the tax reached more than €670m.
Unsurprisingly, Dublin local authorities have been left nursing the biggest losses. South Dublin County Council has served enforcement orders against 51 builders who owe €3m in development fees. That is a fraction of the €33m the council was due to earn in levies over the next few years.
Fingal County Council in north Dublin is chasing €4m in development levies which are overdue. The council is due to earn €66m in phased payments in the coming years.
Dublin City Council was due to be paid €26m last year in levies but has been paid only a fraction of that sum. The city has started enforcement proceedings in 87 cases.
Several councils contacted by the Sunday Independent declined to name the developers they are chasing for legal reasons.
It has emerged that four companies linked to former Fianna Fail councillor Ger Killaly owe more than €1.7m in development levies to Offaly Co Council, which he once chaired.
The debt includes a €642,000 levy for a partially-built hotel complex, the building of which has since been abandoned. The estate agent and his business partner recently settled a legal action taken by former associates in a land deal and were sued by AIB for €15m.
In Roscommon, Laragan Developments, owned by local builder Alan Hanly, owes €500,000 in development levies to the local authority. The company also owes €200,000 to Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown Co Council and €44,000 to Leitrim.
Mr Hanly's company was placed in examinership earlier this year, leaving depositors who bought into a new apartment scheme high and dry. The developer, meanwhile, is currently building a mansion in Roscommon.
Around the country, Meath Co Council, which spawned a building phenomenon in the heart of the commuter belt zone, estimates that it is owed €39.5m in levies.
As the council reckons that half of those developments won't be finished, it plans to write off €20m in bad debts. Although it hasn't chased up the developers who have proceeded with enforcement orders, it is chasing them for the money in other ways.
Louth Co Council is owed €4.2m in development levies as of the end of June, has issued 33 enforcement notices, referred 66 for legal action and prosecuted six companies.
Limerick City Council is owed €2.7m in development levies and has so far issued one enforcement order to recover €587,125. The council has issued proceedings in the District Court to recover 21 other debts.
Galway Co Council is owed €8m to date and has issued enforcement proceedings to recover €188,000.
Usually developers pay the levies on a phased basis over time, with the last chunk due on completion of a property when a letter of compliance is issued. Since the property slump has left half-finished developments littering the country, some developers are unable or unwilling to pay huge fees for developments that they cannot sell. Several councils are now struggling to plug the gaping financial holes that have emerged as developments stall or go to the wall.
The construction industry has warned that levies will have to be reduced as the development sector can no longer afford them.
Irish Independent
www.buckplanning.ie
Metro, Dart key to councils' Dublin plan
DUBLIN’S LOCAL authorities are to campaign for the completion of Metro North and Dart underground as part of an economic development action plan aimed at developing the capital as an internationally competitive region.
The objective is to “position the Dublin city region, the engine of Ireland’s economy, as a significant hub in the European knowledge economy through a network of thriving sectoral and spatial clusters providing a magnet for creative talent and investment”.
This ties in with the Government’s new Smart Economy policy, which focuses on translating innovation into valuable processes, products and services.
The plan, launched yesterday, recognises that city regions are important drivers of national economies and that Dublin constitutes “the only international city region in Ireland” with a population significantly in excess of one million.
Lord Mayor Emer Costello said: “Businesses primarily locate in cities and their competitiveness is determined by the performance of the city, by the quality of its infrastructure, its development capacity and the mix of skilled and talented people.”
Noting the involvement of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin county councils, she said the plan was the first of its kind in the region. “We need a visionary leadership to deliver Dublin’s agenda,” she added. “The significance of having a single political voice has proven a successful concept in other city regions.”
Among the initiatives proposed are plans to “generate a brand” for the Dublin city region and to develop the Creative Dublin Alliance, a collaboration between local government, business and third-level institutions.
The action plan also proposes to develop “key economic corridors” to the south, north and west of the city, including the Metro North corridor, the Naas Road corridor and a southern corridor including Sandyford and Cherrywood. It also pledges to “embed economic criteria in the planning process”.
They are also to lobby for major infrastructural projects that are seen to be “critical to the economic success of the city”, including Metro North, Dart underground, broadband roll-out, waste and water management and a “definitive decision” on future of Dublin Port.
“Intellectual enterprise zones” are to target newly unemployed people who have the potential to become entrepreneurs. Support for the delivery of local cultural strategies and Dublin’s creative industries is seen as “essential”.
Cllr Mary Freehill, who chairs the Dublin Regional Authority, said publication of the action plan was “timely, not just because of the very serious climate . . . but also because we are at the draft stages of development plans in the four authorities”.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
The objective is to “position the Dublin city region, the engine of Ireland’s economy, as a significant hub in the European knowledge economy through a network of thriving sectoral and spatial clusters providing a magnet for creative talent and investment”.
This ties in with the Government’s new Smart Economy policy, which focuses on translating innovation into valuable processes, products and services.
The plan, launched yesterday, recognises that city regions are important drivers of national economies and that Dublin constitutes “the only international city region in Ireland” with a population significantly in excess of one million.
Lord Mayor Emer Costello said: “Businesses primarily locate in cities and their competitiveness is determined by the performance of the city, by the quality of its infrastructure, its development capacity and the mix of skilled and talented people.”
Noting the involvement of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin county councils, she said the plan was the first of its kind in the region. “We need a visionary leadership to deliver Dublin’s agenda,” she added. “The significance of having a single political voice has proven a successful concept in other city regions.”
Among the initiatives proposed are plans to “generate a brand” for the Dublin city region and to develop the Creative Dublin Alliance, a collaboration between local government, business and third-level institutions.
The action plan also proposes to develop “key economic corridors” to the south, north and west of the city, including the Metro North corridor, the Naas Road corridor and a southern corridor including Sandyford and Cherrywood. It also pledges to “embed economic criteria in the planning process”.
They are also to lobby for major infrastructural projects that are seen to be “critical to the economic success of the city”, including Metro North, Dart underground, broadband roll-out, waste and water management and a “definitive decision” on future of Dublin Port.
“Intellectual enterprise zones” are to target newly unemployed people who have the potential to become entrepreneurs. Support for the delivery of local cultural strategies and Dublin’s creative industries is seen as “essential”.
Cllr Mary Freehill, who chairs the Dublin Regional Authority, said publication of the action plan was “timely, not just because of the very serious climate . . . but also because we are at the draft stages of development plans in the four authorities”.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
We must integrate how landscape is managed
OPINION: Treating our most basic resource as a patchwork of separated areas for diverse uses creates conflicting objectives, writes MICHAEL STARRETT .
TIMELESS, MYTHICAL, wondrous and unique: the Irish landscape is rightly seen as uniquely precious by our overseas visitors. Yes, it is all those things. But it is also characterised by a variety of flaws and challenges whose importance lie far closer to home. We all live, work and play in this landscape, and it contains all our natural and cultural resources. Surely something so significant therefore deserves to be looked after in the best way possible, and be the subject of coherent, integrated management and planning. It sounds obvious and simple.
Yet the reality is that key elements of the landscape are treated as so many silos, with their separate protective frameworks. For example, housing, agriculture, infrastructure, forests, water, tourism and environmental protection are each treated as isolated objects, very often yielding contradictory and conflicting objectives because of unclear and overlapping laws.
Current legislation also contains what many now see as a problematic division between rural and urban areas.
All these landscape subsets are handled without any co-ordination, and the resultant damage is everywhere to be seen. From haphazard rural housing policy to incoherent urban sprawl, and not forgetting the rash of disconnected housing estates spawned during the Celtic Tiger era. You can also add controversies about motorway routes and rows about rights of way. Such aberrations demand a better approach to managing our landscape.
Ireland urgently needs a comprehensive landscape legislative framework. The commitment in the current programme for government to develop a National Landscape Strategy is therefore very welcome. But we need to go further. We need a Landscape Ireland Act. Not an Act to stifle development, or to fossilise our environment, but an Act that focuses on overall landscape planning, management and conservation.
There is also a need for existing legislation to be amended to recognise the importance of landscapes; for example, the current National Monuments Bill recognising cultural landscapes, and the need to ensure that a definition of landscape is added to the new Planning Bill 2009. It almost beggars belief that even our planning legislation contains no definition of landscape. However, while these changes represent an important step in the process of recognising landscapes in law, they continue the sectoral approach and do not achieve the overall knitting together of activity that a specific Act could achieve.
Such an Act would legislate for efficient and effective ways to conserve and manage all our landscapes – rural and urban. It would provide means for the determination of landscape types, identifying values, the state of conservation of the landscape, and propose quality objectives with which to be complied.
It would put an agreed set of measures in place to secure meaningful sustainable development through actions taken for conservation and management purposes. Such actions should not be prescriptive, but could focus on areas like land management, tourism, education and recreation.
These actions will bring economic and social benefits to an area. Identified measures would recognise and address the needs and aspirations of all stakeholders – people living in towns and villages, farmers and other rural dwellers, and visitors to our landscapes.
One need only reflect on the current farm incomes crisis, the decline in rural tourism, and the damage done to countless urban and rural landscapes during the Celtic Tiger era, to agree there has to be a better way; one that can be embodied in integrated, sustainable landscape management. This would also allow us to develop and work to an agreed set of objectives for different landscapes. It would include a development programme to keep each landscape diverse, dynamic and healthy by associating it with a diverse, dynamic and healthy local economy, featuring sustainable communities, farming, tourism and industry; we could take full account of our natural and built heritage.
In this context, the enforced suspension of the Reps agri-environment programme is very regrettable. Farmers represent the largest collective of rural landscape managers in the State and if we are to be serious about our landscapes and natural habitats, our ecosystems, fresh water supplies and the quality of the food that we eat, then we have to encourage every move by the farming community in the direction of environmental sustainability. Investment in environmental management represents sustainable economic policy, sustaining jobs and the environment.
The Heritage Council has played a significant role in shaping both natural and cultural heritage benefits that can derive from such agri-environment schemes. Most recently the introduction of a supplementary measure to support conservation and repair of traditional farm buildings has borne fruit across the country. This is currently worth €1 million annually up until 2013. As with much of the council’s work, it illustrates clearly that relatively small investments in heritage and environmental initiatives can bring long-term economic and social benefits and retain vibrant local communities.
Significant progress in developing models of integrated and sustainable landscape plans are progressing around the country. The forthcoming Heritage Council Landscape Conference will showcase some major initiatives in the Wicklow uplands, the Burren and Bere Island, featuring local community and farming initiatives. However, while these pilot projects are delivering real benefits, they operate in a vacuum, with no long-term legislative or structural framework to sustain them in the future. They are not without their problems and are for the most part based on voluntary participation. The recent changes to Reps highlights on a national scale the weakness of such voluntary arrangements.
The conference will also hear examples from across Europe and Canada on how they have responded to the landscape management challenges they have faced, many of which are very similar to those we face in this country. It will provide a platform for all of those with a sectoral stake in the Irish landscape to debate how we can work more closely together and make the best of where we all live, work and play. Its biggest contribution must surely be to set an agenda for our landscapes into the future and to point us in the direction of the best legislative framework and most appropriate structures to get us there.
Michael Starrett is chief executive officer of the Heritage Council.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
TIMELESS, MYTHICAL, wondrous and unique: the Irish landscape is rightly seen as uniquely precious by our overseas visitors. Yes, it is all those things. But it is also characterised by a variety of flaws and challenges whose importance lie far closer to home. We all live, work and play in this landscape, and it contains all our natural and cultural resources. Surely something so significant therefore deserves to be looked after in the best way possible, and be the subject of coherent, integrated management and planning. It sounds obvious and simple.
Yet the reality is that key elements of the landscape are treated as so many silos, with their separate protective frameworks. For example, housing, agriculture, infrastructure, forests, water, tourism and environmental protection are each treated as isolated objects, very often yielding contradictory and conflicting objectives because of unclear and overlapping laws.
Current legislation also contains what many now see as a problematic division between rural and urban areas.
All these landscape subsets are handled without any co-ordination, and the resultant damage is everywhere to be seen. From haphazard rural housing policy to incoherent urban sprawl, and not forgetting the rash of disconnected housing estates spawned during the Celtic Tiger era. You can also add controversies about motorway routes and rows about rights of way. Such aberrations demand a better approach to managing our landscape.
Ireland urgently needs a comprehensive landscape legislative framework. The commitment in the current programme for government to develop a National Landscape Strategy is therefore very welcome. But we need to go further. We need a Landscape Ireland Act. Not an Act to stifle development, or to fossilise our environment, but an Act that focuses on overall landscape planning, management and conservation.
There is also a need for existing legislation to be amended to recognise the importance of landscapes; for example, the current National Monuments Bill recognising cultural landscapes, and the need to ensure that a definition of landscape is added to the new Planning Bill 2009. It almost beggars belief that even our planning legislation contains no definition of landscape. However, while these changes represent an important step in the process of recognising landscapes in law, they continue the sectoral approach and do not achieve the overall knitting together of activity that a specific Act could achieve.
Such an Act would legislate for efficient and effective ways to conserve and manage all our landscapes – rural and urban. It would provide means for the determination of landscape types, identifying values, the state of conservation of the landscape, and propose quality objectives with which to be complied.
It would put an agreed set of measures in place to secure meaningful sustainable development through actions taken for conservation and management purposes. Such actions should not be prescriptive, but could focus on areas like land management, tourism, education and recreation.
These actions will bring economic and social benefits to an area. Identified measures would recognise and address the needs and aspirations of all stakeholders – people living in towns and villages, farmers and other rural dwellers, and visitors to our landscapes.
One need only reflect on the current farm incomes crisis, the decline in rural tourism, and the damage done to countless urban and rural landscapes during the Celtic Tiger era, to agree there has to be a better way; one that can be embodied in integrated, sustainable landscape management. This would also allow us to develop and work to an agreed set of objectives for different landscapes. It would include a development programme to keep each landscape diverse, dynamic and healthy by associating it with a diverse, dynamic and healthy local economy, featuring sustainable communities, farming, tourism and industry; we could take full account of our natural and built heritage.
In this context, the enforced suspension of the Reps agri-environment programme is very regrettable. Farmers represent the largest collective of rural landscape managers in the State and if we are to be serious about our landscapes and natural habitats, our ecosystems, fresh water supplies and the quality of the food that we eat, then we have to encourage every move by the farming community in the direction of environmental sustainability. Investment in environmental management represents sustainable economic policy, sustaining jobs and the environment.
The Heritage Council has played a significant role in shaping both natural and cultural heritage benefits that can derive from such agri-environment schemes. Most recently the introduction of a supplementary measure to support conservation and repair of traditional farm buildings has borne fruit across the country. This is currently worth €1 million annually up until 2013. As with much of the council’s work, it illustrates clearly that relatively small investments in heritage and environmental initiatives can bring long-term economic and social benefits and retain vibrant local communities.
Significant progress in developing models of integrated and sustainable landscape plans are progressing around the country. The forthcoming Heritage Council Landscape Conference will showcase some major initiatives in the Wicklow uplands, the Burren and Bere Island, featuring local community and farming initiatives. However, while these pilot projects are delivering real benefits, they operate in a vacuum, with no long-term legislative or structural framework to sustain them in the future. They are not without their problems and are for the most part based on voluntary participation. The recent changes to Reps highlights on a national scale the weakness of such voluntary arrangements.
The conference will also hear examples from across Europe and Canada on how they have responded to the landscape management challenges they have faced, many of which are very similar to those we face in this country. It will provide a platform for all of those with a sectoral stake in the Irish landscape to debate how we can work more closely together and make the best of where we all live, work and play. Its biggest contribution must surely be to set an agenda for our landscapes into the future and to point us in the direction of the best legislative framework and most appropriate structures to get us there.
Michael Starrett is chief executive officer of the Heritage Council.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Methane risks persist at docklands site, warns former EPA inspector
SIGNIFICANT RISKS from methane gas remain on a €450 million site in Dublin’s docklands despite an attempt by the owners to get Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) clearance that the lands are safe for development, a former EPA inspector has warned.
The Irish Glass Bottle property in Ringsend is owned by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) together with developer Bernard McNamara and financier Derek Quinlan, using a company called Becbay partly funded by a €288 million loan from Anglo-Irish Bank. Becbay claims the lands have been fully cleaned of the pollutants left by decades of industrial use and should no longer be considered an industrial site. They say it should therefore be free for development.
In March, Becbay applied to the EPA to drop the requirement for an Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Licence, which was needed during the period of Irish Glass Bottle’s operations on the Ringsend lands since 1994.
In a submission to the EPA, one of its former inspectors, Malcolm Doak, however, warned that 30 per cent methane gas levels exist on the lands and that “a significant gas risk still remains on-site”.
Urging the EPA not to agree to the surrender of the licence, Mr Doak said a decision to do otherwise would “set a new precedent for contaminated land remediation in Ireland”.
Arup Consulting Engineers produced a report for Becbay in March, which declared that “all vestiges” of the Irish Glass Bottle operations have been removed from the site, and that the lands are in “a satisfactory state”.
In a letter to the EPA’s office of environmental enforcement, Arup director Niamh O’Sullivan said Arup’s report “provides an independent closure audit for the facility”. Ms O’Sullivan is also a director of the DDDA.
Space created under car-parking spaces and other services would “create a wide and ventilated physical barrier” between polluted lands “and the future habitable spaces of the new development.
This option allowed for leaving deeper deposits of the legacy landfill in place, hence reducing the quantity of waste that required export and disposal,” said the report.
Meanwhile, difficulties in deciding on valuations of properties and assets owned by the DDDA have delayed the submission of the body’s accounts to Minister for the Environment John Gormley.
The accounts, once published, are likely to put the State body into deficit for the first time, reflecting heavy losses sustained on the €450 million Irish Glass Bottle deal – one of the biggest deals of the property boom.
The authority’s then chief executive, Paul Maloney (who resigned on Tuesday night), promised the Oireachtas Committee on Environment last February to publish the accounts by the end of June “at the latest”. “They are definitely delayed. They won’t be published until the autumn,” an authority spokesman told The Irish Times.
“The docklands authority’s accounts for the year 2008, which will include valuations for the authority’s property and development assets are currently being prepared and will be submitted to the Minister for Environment, Heritage Local Government in autumn 2009. The annual report on activities for 2008 has already been submitted,” the authority said in a formal statement.
Fine Gael TD Phil Hogan, in a letter to authority chairman UCD professor Niamh Brennan, demanded full details of the retirement agreement reached with Mr Maloney, whose term of office ran until the middle of next year.
“I noted your statement regarding the early retirement of your chief executive Paul Maloney on July 29th ,2009. I am seeking to establish the terms of his retirement and his financial settlement. I am also interested in your reference to the challenges facing the DDDA that lie ahead,” wrote Mr Hogan.
“During the course of the committee meeting last February, it was clear that there were concerns regarding good corporate governance. Could you indicate if you have addressed the concerns raised and if you will seek to ensure that the board of the DDDA implements new procedures in respect of its decision-making?” he asked.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
The Irish Glass Bottle property in Ringsend is owned by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) together with developer Bernard McNamara and financier Derek Quinlan, using a company called Becbay partly funded by a €288 million loan from Anglo-Irish Bank. Becbay claims the lands have been fully cleaned of the pollutants left by decades of industrial use and should no longer be considered an industrial site. They say it should therefore be free for development.
In March, Becbay applied to the EPA to drop the requirement for an Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Licence, which was needed during the period of Irish Glass Bottle’s operations on the Ringsend lands since 1994.
In a submission to the EPA, one of its former inspectors, Malcolm Doak, however, warned that 30 per cent methane gas levels exist on the lands and that “a significant gas risk still remains on-site”.
Urging the EPA not to agree to the surrender of the licence, Mr Doak said a decision to do otherwise would “set a new precedent for contaminated land remediation in Ireland”.
Arup Consulting Engineers produced a report for Becbay in March, which declared that “all vestiges” of the Irish Glass Bottle operations have been removed from the site, and that the lands are in “a satisfactory state”.
In a letter to the EPA’s office of environmental enforcement, Arup director Niamh O’Sullivan said Arup’s report “provides an independent closure audit for the facility”. Ms O’Sullivan is also a director of the DDDA.
Space created under car-parking spaces and other services would “create a wide and ventilated physical barrier” between polluted lands “and the future habitable spaces of the new development.
This option allowed for leaving deeper deposits of the legacy landfill in place, hence reducing the quantity of waste that required export and disposal,” said the report.
Meanwhile, difficulties in deciding on valuations of properties and assets owned by the DDDA have delayed the submission of the body’s accounts to Minister for the Environment John Gormley.
The accounts, once published, are likely to put the State body into deficit for the first time, reflecting heavy losses sustained on the €450 million Irish Glass Bottle deal – one of the biggest deals of the property boom.
The authority’s then chief executive, Paul Maloney (who resigned on Tuesday night), promised the Oireachtas Committee on Environment last February to publish the accounts by the end of June “at the latest”. “They are definitely delayed. They won’t be published until the autumn,” an authority spokesman told The Irish Times.
“The docklands authority’s accounts for the year 2008, which will include valuations for the authority’s property and development assets are currently being prepared and will be submitted to the Minister for Environment, Heritage Local Government in autumn 2009. The annual report on activities for 2008 has already been submitted,” the authority said in a formal statement.
Fine Gael TD Phil Hogan, in a letter to authority chairman UCD professor Niamh Brennan, demanded full details of the retirement agreement reached with Mr Maloney, whose term of office ran until the middle of next year.
“I noted your statement regarding the early retirement of your chief executive Paul Maloney on July 29th ,2009. I am seeking to establish the terms of his retirement and his financial settlement. I am also interested in your reference to the challenges facing the DDDA that lie ahead,” wrote Mr Hogan.
“During the course of the committee meeting last February, it was clear that there were concerns regarding good corporate governance. Could you indicate if you have addressed the concerns raised and if you will seek to ensure that the board of the DDDA implements new procedures in respect of its decision-making?” he asked.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Architects' proposal to remove bridge merely 'tongue in cheek'
A PROPOSAL by Dublin City Council architects to remove the loopline railway bridge in front of the Custom House has been dismissed by Iarnród Éireann and the council’s planners.
The proposal to remove the bridge, long considered one of the city’s biggest eyesores because it blocks views of the Custom House, surfaced yesterday at the An Bord Pleanála hearing into the proposed redevelopment of Tara Street train station.
Iarnród Éireann is proposing a 15-storey office tower as part of a €100 million redevelopment of the station. Its planning application, opposed by the council, is being considered by An Bord Pleanála under the new “fast-track” procedure for strategic infrastructure projects. According to a report from the council’s architecture division, which was discussed at yesterday’s second day of the hearing, the most significant improvement Iarnród Éireann could make in the area would be to remove the loopline bridge.
The report noted that proposals for the removal of the bridge have been made as far back as 1922.
However, Niall McDonnell, senior planner with the council, said it was not the authority’s policy to have the bridge removed.
Conleth Bradley, for Iarnród Éireann, said it appeared the council was disagreeing with itself. Mr McDonnell denied this was the case. He said the call in the report for the bridge’s removal was “tongue in cheek”.
Mr Bradley said it wasn’t good enough for the council to give a tongue in cheek response about an application for a vital piece of public infrastructure. However, he accepted the council was not seeking the bridge’s removal.
The Dublin Cycling Campaign called for more cycle parking facilities at the station. Colm Moore, representing the group, said greater efforts could be made to provide cycle parking either by Iarnród Éireann alone or with the council and other property owners. He criticised Iarnród Éireann’s failure to inform the public of the proposed development. The site notices were “half-hearted” and faded, he claimed, and no one knew about the dedicated website until after the planning deadline had expired. “It was like a lost book in a library, where only the person who knows where it is can locate it.”
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
The proposal to remove the bridge, long considered one of the city’s biggest eyesores because it blocks views of the Custom House, surfaced yesterday at the An Bord Pleanála hearing into the proposed redevelopment of Tara Street train station.
Iarnród Éireann is proposing a 15-storey office tower as part of a €100 million redevelopment of the station. Its planning application, opposed by the council, is being considered by An Bord Pleanála under the new “fast-track” procedure for strategic infrastructure projects. According to a report from the council’s architecture division, which was discussed at yesterday’s second day of the hearing, the most significant improvement Iarnród Éireann could make in the area would be to remove the loopline bridge.
The report noted that proposals for the removal of the bridge have been made as far back as 1922.
However, Niall McDonnell, senior planner with the council, said it was not the authority’s policy to have the bridge removed.
Conleth Bradley, for Iarnród Éireann, said it appeared the council was disagreeing with itself. Mr McDonnell denied this was the case. He said the call in the report for the bridge’s removal was “tongue in cheek”.
Mr Bradley said it wasn’t good enough for the council to give a tongue in cheek response about an application for a vital piece of public infrastructure. However, he accepted the council was not seeking the bridge’s removal.
The Dublin Cycling Campaign called for more cycle parking facilities at the station. Colm Moore, representing the group, said greater efforts could be made to provide cycle parking either by Iarnród Éireann alone or with the council and other property owners. He criticised Iarnród Éireann’s failure to inform the public of the proposed development. The site notices were “half-hearted” and faded, he claimed, and no one knew about the dedicated website until after the planning deadline had expired. “It was like a lost book in a library, where only the person who knows where it is can locate it.”
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
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