It was business as usual last year when former Fianna Fáil TD Marc MacSharry started lobbying for Beldare, a large Sligo-based property developer with multi-million-euro projects under way after 11 years in business.
MacSharry, son of Sligo political colossus Ray MacSharry, had known the Porsche-driving Beldare chief executive Cathal O’Connor for decades. But he was “not aware” O’Connor was facing prosecution for a vicious assault on three teenagers in 2024 – and the prospect of a prison sentence – when he took on Beldare as one of the first clients in his new consulting firm Pontis Advisory.
Records show MacSharry has since made seven official declarations about his Beldare lobbying, citing multiple approaches to senior Government, Opposition and local authority figures.
MacSharry’s link with the Beldare co-owner spilled into the open when a Sligo judge disclosed the former TD had provided a character reference for O’Connor when handing him a five-year sentence over his violent attack on three 13-year-old boys.
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The final three years were suspended for six years, meaning O’Connor will spend two years in prison. The start of the sentence was deferred for two months to allow him settle his business affairs.
The convicted businessman is a director of 23 companies, one of which, Goldcross Developments, had work in progress valued at €8.24 million in March 2025. At the same time, the accumulated profits of O’Connor’s company Altitude Distribution stood at €2.35 million.
It is not possible from Beldare filings to gauge the full extent of its assets and liabilities. But by its own account, the company is a “large scale residential developer” in the north-west region “operating at a nationwide reach”.
MacSharry says his lobbying for Beldare was “a matter of fact”, adding that his work for the company continues. “They are one of the clients. It’s part-owned by the O’Connor family. That’s the position,” the former TD adds, noting he acts for assorted clients and takes his responsibilities under lobbying law seriously.
The ruling handed down by Judge Keenan Johnson said one of the teenage victims recalled O’Connor saying “his family owned Collooney and Ballisodare and that they could get the boys banned from Collooney”. He was alleged to have said “he was friends with all the guards so nothing bad would happen to him”.
The court heard the boys had been in O’Connor’s property in a Collooney business park, making “a little house out of furniture they found in the prefab”, when they were attacked.
The assault, on March 18th 2024, continued for 48 minutes. O’Connor brandished a saw to one boy’s neck, threatening to cut off his arms, legs and head, and choking him until he blacked out. “He also told them that if they were older he would have killed them,” the ruling said.
But who is Cathal O’Connor? What is the size and scope of the Beldare business? And what now for the company with the chief executive starting a prison term on July 1st?
Beldare’s growing property empire is an offshoot of O’Connor Cabins, a family-run container, cabin and prefabricated building manufacturer which has been in business for three generations, over 50 years.
The development company claims to have built 427 homes since 2015, with 356 housing units under construction and another 633 in planning.
The location of its sites vary, with assorted projects in Sligo locations such as Ballisodare, Strandhill, Caltragh, Hazelwood, Gibraltar Point and the Dartry mountains. It has Dublin projects in Knocklyon, Usher’s Island, Blackhorse Avenue and Inchicore, and another in the former Veha factory site in Wicklow town.
Beldare’s healthcare arm cites ownership of two “HSE houses” with wheelchair accessibility, as well as a 93-bedroom nursing home, a daycare centre and a primary care centre project near Pearse Road in Sligo.
In court, O’Connor said banks had withdrawn funding for three projects as a result of the incident and indicated the case had “catastrophic consequences” for his company.
Still, the public record points to Beldare pushing ahead with its plans. The company website includes a note on “land acquisition” expressing interest in buying unused land subject to the residential zoned land tax. “We are actively purchasing land nationwide from landowners,” it says.
“We will have a decision in 24 hours, hassle-free, with capital ready to go.”
Beldare Homes made a submission as recently as March to Sligo County Council on development plan variations, one of six papers presented to the local authority in two years. In December 2024, Beldare complained of “significant and material” development plan errors.
In addition, O’Connor’s company, Altitude Distribution, has a “live” case before the High Court in a judicial review action contesting parts or the same development plan. The High Court action was initiated in November 2024, eight months after O’Connor’s assault on the teenagers. This case is for mention again soon.
MacSharry’s declarations show meetings for Beldare between May and August last year with Roscommon County Council chief executive Shane Tiernan and Sinn Féin TD Eoin Ó Broin.
In the same period, there were emails “in relation to zoning” seeking “improvement in housing output through policy adjustment” to Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Simon Harris and many other high-level figures in Government circles and Sligo politics. They included Minister for Housing James Browne, Ministers of State Marian Harkin and John Cummins, Fine Gael TD Frank Feighan, Sinn Féin TD Martin Kenny, Department of Housing secretary general Graham Doyle, as well as Martin’s chief of staff, Deirdre Gillane, Harris’s chief of staff, Sarah Bardon, and other advisers.
MacSharry said he met Browne at a conference in September to December “and held a brief informal discussion outside to seek a more formal engagement with our client”. Further emails seeking “facilitation of additional zoning” were issued in that period to Browne, Doyle, Cummins and top advisers. There was also a Roscommon County Council meeting in that period to discuss the “potential of lands at Ardsallagh, Roscommon, being included in the forthcoming variation process or future development plans”.
In addition, MacSharry emailed Browne and Fianna Fáil TD Shay Brennan seeking “expeditious conclusion to an ongoing case” in Tailte Éireann, the property registration body.
All of this was going on while O’Connor awaited a determination of his case before Sligo Circuit Court. Now his business faces a moment of truth.
