‘Land prices are up since €23m spent on race track ’
The Valuation Office has said land values around the Harold’s Cross greyhound stadium have increased in the 18 months since it suggested the Department of Education pay €23m for the Dublin site.
The Irish Greyhound Board (IGB) cleared its debt, after completion of the sale in May, a year after the Department of Education offered €23m for the property. Racing ended there early last year. The figure, suggested in an April 2017 valuation from the Valuation Office, matched the board’s long-standing bank debt. The coincidence drew renewed controversy, since it emerged, last week, that the board’s own, independent valuers had suggested a value of €12m if used for housing, but as little as €6m if restricted to recreation.
Subsequent to acceptance of its offer in May, 2017, the Department of Education secured Dublin City Council rezoning of the land in September 2017 to allow construction of schools there.
In the Dáil on Thursday, new Education Minister Joe McHugh acknowledged the €3.8m per acre paid by his department was “big money”. He committed to publish both the April, 2017, Valuation Office report and a more recent update, provided in light of the controversy around the IGB’s much lower valuation.
The update received earlier this week, from the Valuation Office, was also referred to on Thursday by Department of Education secretary general, Seán Ó Foghlú, at the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
Fianna Fáil TD Marc MacSharry suggested last year based on his experience as an auctioneer, that the value of the Harold’s Cross site was more likely to be €9m, if appropriate zoning was secured.
He raised it again at a PAC meeting with Department of Education officials on Thursday, but Mr Ó Foghlú defended the figure paid. The secretary general said the department was bound to go with the figure from an independent valuation by the Valuation Office.
“Since then, we asked them to do a market check and they have come back and said that prices have gone up since,” he said.
“It would have been great if we could go with your valuation, but that’s the valuation that came through,” he told Mr MacSharry.
The Valuation Office update, posted on the Department of Education website, said housing-market pressures have continued to force up the value of, and prices paid for, land with development potential, since April, 2017.
“The Valuation Office is aware of a number of transactions that have taken place in the last year in the Dublin 6 and Dublin 8 areas, for in excess of €6m per acre,” it wrote.
