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Call to pause planning clock, O’Brien sells Beacon, and FBD surprises again

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At least 38,000 homes may not get built unless the Government introduces measure to stop the clock when approved developments are subject to judicial review, a lobby group has warned. Photograph: iStock

Dominic Coyle's face
Dominic Coyle
Wed Feb 14 2024 - 06:46

Failure to stop the planning clock for developments subject to judicial review under the new Planning and Development Bill poses a “severe risk” to the delivery of at least 38,000 homes in the construction pipeline at a time of an ongoing housing crisis, lobby group Irish Institutional Property (IIP) has warned Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien. Ellen O’Regan has secured the details under a Freedom of Information request.

Denis O’Brien has sold Beacon Hospital in south Dublin to Australian financial services giant Macquarie’s asset management arm in a deal estimated to be worth more than €400 million. Joe Brennan has crunched the numbers and reckons that means Mr O’Brien will have made a €100 million profit on his investment in the hospital where he took control just under 10 years ago when he bought loans associated with the business. Joe also assesses where this now leave Mr O’Brien’s business empire.

Ireland’s only indigenous insurance group, FBD, has continued a recent trend of surprising on the upside as it said pretax profit for 2023 would come in around €80 million, almost 60 per cent ahead of the previous analyst consensus of €47 million, Joe writes, noting it is the third straight year that the company has moved to guide market expectations higher in the run-up to publishing its financial results.

A senior executive with an aircraft leasing firm has launched High Court proceedings to stop his employer from sanctioning him over his remote working arrangements. The company wants him to work in Dublin several days a week while the executive says it has never had any an issue over several years with him working from his Clare home. Stephen Bourke was at the hearing.

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Also in the courts, two Chinese businesspeople are suing each other in the High Court over ownership of the luxury Fota Island Resort in Co Cork.

Over in the Workplace Relations Commission, a crane hire company that dismissed a worker while he was at home recovering from a fall at work has been ordered to pay him €14,000, after what the WRC found was an “egregious” breach of employment legislation that was “quite simply beyond belief in this day and age” following a hearing in which the two sides “traded mutual insults”.

Ireland’s Catholic bishops ploughed €400,000 last year into its loss-making publishing arm Veritas last year which last week announced it is to close with the loss of 80 jobs, according to new accounts. Accounts for the hierarchy trust shows it had already lent over €600,000 to the business.

Irish telecoms company Eir has seen the outlook for its junk-rated debt raised to stable by ratings agency Moody’s from negative previously. Joe Brennan reports that Moody’s expects the group to dial down the dividends it pays its owners this year and next.

In the political sphere, ahead of a series of union ballots on the latest public sector pay deal, Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe said it strikes the right balance “between helping workers with the cost of living, but also not adding to inflation this year and next year and making things even worse for all of us”.

And although German finance minister Christian Lindner was reluctant to wade into Ireland’s immigration issue on a visit to Dublin to meet his counterpart, Michael McGrath, he did say that Germany had opted for tighter controls that allow the country to welcome workers for jobs that need filling without overburdening its welfare system. Eoin Burke-Kennedy was listening in.

Barry O’Halloran writes that agribusiness specialist Clonbio, one of Europe’s largest producers of bioethanol, is joining forces with a European industry group to legally challenge an EU law barring crop-based biofuels from use in air travel.

In his column, Chris Giles argues that a continuing history of fairy tale economic forecasting will end in tears for major western economies but electoral pressure means it might take a crisis to restore a sense of reality.

In our Commercial Property section, H&M brand Arket is set to arrive in Dublin later this year at Grafton Place, the newly developed mixed-use scheme at the junction of Dawson Street and Nassau Street.

Meanwhile, real estate private equity giant Palm Capital has instructed Lisney and CBRE to find a buyer for its €40 million Orbital portfolio, a collection of four prime logistics assets distributed across Dublin.

A private Irish family fund has bought Greystones’ Meridian Point shopping centre for €7 million, giving it a net initial yield of just under 8 per cent.

And on the outskirts of Cavan town, Bannon and Sherry FitzGerald Declan Woods are guiding a price of €1.5 million for an 11.8-acre site zoned for residential development.

Finally, Ranelagh native Laura McCarthy, who was a 20-year-old college student when she started her business, Drink Botanicals Ireland, producing kits for gin enthusiasts to garnish their drinks at home has signed a deal to export her range to Dubai after enjoying initial export success in the UK and the US on Amazon. She spoke to Ellen O’Regan.

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