Ireland’s largest private landlord names Declan Moylan chairman

Irish Residential Properties Reit (Ires), the State's largest private landlord, has appointed Declan Moylan, a former managing director of law firm Mason Hayes & Curran, as chairman, effective from Friday.

Mr Moylan, who is currently deputy chairman of the board, succeeds Colm O’Nualláin, who signalled he was stepping down last month.

The move comes as Ires, the owner of almost 2,400 apartments in Ireland that floated on the Irish Stock Exchange three years ago, published its annual report. This showed that chief executive David Ehrlich's remuneration came to €708,000 for the year, compared with €778,000 for the previous year. Mr Ehrlich is paid in Canadian collars.

In addition to Mr Ehrlich's employment with Ires, he also became an employee at the end of last year of Canadian property investment group Capreit, which set up Ires and continues to hold almost 16 per cent of the Irish company's stock. On February 28th, Mr Ehrlich received a one-time grant equal to CA$500,000 (€349,123) in restricted stock rights, or units.

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He is also entitled to a further CA$150,000 worth of such stock rights per annum, plus further rights equal to the amount of any discretionary bonus received from Capreit.

Lack of supply

Ires posted a 52 per cent increase in profits last year to €47 million as it acquired 763 apartments and increased rents.

“The board believes the positive economic outlook for Ireland and the property market will lead to increased demand in the residential rental sector, which the board believes should result in continued improvement in performance of the group on a sustainable long-term basis,” Mr O’Nualláin said in the annual report.

“Ires plans to continue to look at development opportunities to address the lack of supply in Dublin.”

The company was recently forced to resubmit proposals for an apartment scheme at its "Rockbrook" site in Sandyford after planners with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council raised concerns over the height and density of the development. The revised 460-apartment scheme is expected to reduce potential income by some €600,000 a year.

“The current planning guidelines and high cost of new construction make it difficult for the severe shortage of accommodation to be rectified for quite some time,” Ires said in the annual report.

Ires said it continues to look at acquisitions, after considering the Government’s recent move to cap rent increases at 4 per cent per annum for three years in Dublin, Cork, Galway and many surrounding towns.