Dispute between Johnny Ronan and Kenny family is settled

A dispute involving companies of developers Johnny Ronan and the Kenny family, which allegedly delayed construction work on a high-profile Dublin site, has been resolved, the Commercial Court heard.

The former Eircom Exchange building at Harcourt Road/Adelaide Road was bought in 2015 by Sunnybank Quarter DAC, part of the Clancourt Group which was established by Mayo-born developer Charles Kenny. It has permission to demolish the Eircom building and replace it with a nine-storey, 18,464sq m office building.

Neighbouring St James’s House, long-leased by Mr Ronan’s RGRE Burlington firm, had refused Sunnybank’s rightful access through RGRE’s property to divert air-conditioning units attached to the Eircom building walls so that demolition of that building could take place, Sunnybank claimed.

Sunnybank said it had spent a year getting a District Court order giving it the authorisations to carry out the air-conditioning works but RGRE had since obstructed them in gaining access.

RGRE wanted the matter to go back before the District Court judge who gave the authorisations for an explanation of what the access order meant. That judge has since retired and the matter could take a long time to hear before another District Court judge, Sunnybank said.

High Court proceedings

As a result it brought High Court proceedings seeking an injunction restraining RGRE from interfering with the lawful carrying out of works. RGRE sought to strike out the Sunnybank claim.

The case was entered into the fast-track Commercial Court list and was due to be heard by Mr Justice Denis McDonald but he was told on Wednesday it had been settled.

The judge thanked the parties for “putting to bed a reasonably long-running dispute” over what had been “a very troublesome and difficult issue”.

He struck out Sunnybank’s injunction application and RGRE’s strike-out application. He adjourned all matters generally with liberty to re-enter the case in the future should it be required.