Dublin business park access dispute fast-tracked

A DISPUTE involving an elderly couple over access to a business park in west Dublin may affect a planned data centre development there valued at more than €118 million, the Commercial Court has heard.

It is alleged the dispute arose from a mapping error in the Property Registration Authority.

The National Assets Management Agency, which has an interest on behalf of the taxpayer in recovering money due under loans of more than €40 million provided to Dasnoc, parent of the defendant company Sammark Property, is anxious the dispute be resolved quickly, Mr Justice Peter Kelly was told.

Dasnoc is said to be in advanced negotiations for the sale to another company, Digital Realty Trust, of part of the 90-acre Profile Park business park, to which 0.88 acres of a disputed strip of lands provide the only vehicular access. While the lands for sale to Digital Reality were valued at about €5 million, the value of that company’s investment in the park is some €118 million, Eileen Barrington, for Sammark, said.

She said Nama had approved her client’s offer to Bernadette Kelly and her husband Liam Kelly, a retired vegetable salesman, of Nangor Road, Clondalkin, on condition that Sammark applied to the Commercial Court to fast-track the proceedings by the couple over ownership of the disputed lands.

The couple claim that through a mapping error by the Property Registration Authority, they lost the 0.88-acre site from their lands, bought in 1984, and are entitled to have the error rectified.

Sammark, with Nama’s approval, has offered them an alternative 0.88 acre site within the area, but excluding the part traversed by the access road. Sammark claims it has been in possession of the strip of land since 1956 and is entitled to adverse possession (squatters’ rights).

Mr Justice Kelly said that taking into account matters including the public interest, he would admit the case to the Commercial Court, despite delays by both sides in progressing the proceedings.