Ringsend rip-off

Green Party criticises land law loophole
From:ireland.com
Sunday, 17th July, 2005

The continued existence of a legal loophole which allows private companies to purchase State property at prices far below its commercial value has been criticised by the Green Party.

The party’s finance spokesman, Dan Doyle said the likely purchase of a 25 acre plot of State land in the Dublin Port area for 20 million euro, far less than its 300 million euro estimated full value, has led to concern that emergency legislation brought in by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment in May has not closed it off.

The legislation was introduced after a tenant on an IDA-owned site used the same loophole to purchase a multi-million euro site.

Under the loophole a tenant who has sub-let a site using specific criteria can cancel all other agreements on the land, creating the right to purchase the property for only the fee simple, or freehold.

Describing the situation as a scandal, Mr Boyle said: “This public land loophole is one of the this Government’s biggest losses to the taxpayer in recent years.

“Once again the Government have proved to be utterly incompetent when it comes to responsible Government as bankers of the public’s money.

“The Government has a duty to tell us how many other state companies are vulnerable to the purchase of State land at ridiculously low price. It now appears that if all the loopholes have not been plugged it will be late September before the matter can be rectified.”

Mr Boyle said the Government’s amending legislation only protected State companies under the remit of his department; the IDA, Udaras na Gaeltachta, and the Shannon Development Company.

It is understood that the company seeking to purchase the Dublin Port site is called South Wharf, led by Paul Coulson. The site had been rented to Irish Glass Bottle Ltd.