Mark Elliott, who heads up P Elliott & Co’s property division, has had some luck over in Tallaght in west Dublin. Together with Peter Queally he has been given the go-ahead to convert part of the Arena Complex into a bingo hall. There’ll be two sessions a day, attracting 450 players in total. Clients are typically over 50 and female and shuttle buses will ferry them to and from the venue, according to documentation submitted with the application.

Along with location, timing is everything in property so while it looks like Elliott has struck it lucky with the bingo hall it appears P Elliott Co had less luck with its €29 million purchase of the former Irish Times head office on D’Olier Street in Dublin’s city centre in 2006.

Accounts for the company behind the redevelopment of that building show it had a shareholders’ deficit of nearly €24.9 million at the end of 2009, which it blamed on impairments on the works that were in progress at the time.

But since then the majority of the building has been let to the Irish Aviation Authority and HT Meagher O’Reilly and CB Richard Ellis are working away to secure retail lettings at the redeveloped building.

P Elliott Co is using a vehicle called Veba to redevelop the city blocks and Veba’s bank loans rose to €43.9 million from €31.72 million during 2009.

Auditors BDO inserted an emphasis of matter, which was not qualified, saying the “validity of the going concern basis. . . depends on the continued support of the company’s bankers, its related parties and its directors”.