Owen O’Callaghan: Dublin developers mainly at fault
Owen O’Callaghan, of O’Callaghan Properties, said this core group of about six developers was assisted in some cases by the banks.
He believes NAMA, the agency that will take over banks’ bad debts, will not work and bad press abroad is not helping the economy.
“Developer is a dirty word at the moment. There are a half a dozen developers in the country, I must admit mainly in the Dublin region, but not all in the Dublin region, who really lost the run of themselves, and got us in to all kinds of problems, I’m afraid assisted in some cases by banks,” the Cork-based developer said.
“That’s just a small amount of developers. The rest of us, ourselves, for example, who have been in business for the past 40 years – and there are quite amount of developers like ourselves who have been in business for a long time and who are still in business – these people haven’t made the mistakes that these new-type developers made over the past couple of years. We haven’t been spending silly money and charging silly prices for various projects. There are a lot of those developers around, and they are still around and I believe they will still be around.”
Mr O’Callaghan was speaking to Newstalk radio yesterday after announcing plans for an €80 million private hospital in Cork city.
He said the residential element of his business has effectively stopped. But if the latest ESRI forecast, which predicts economic recovery in about two years followed by some growth, is correct, people should look to the future with confidence.
“We are a right shower of knockers, really and truly,” he said. “When we are going down, we keep kicking ourselves down and keeping ourselves down.”
Mr O’Callaghan expects his two multi-million retail projects at Half Moon Street and the nearby St Patrick’s Street retail centres in Cork city to be fully let and open for business by Christmas.
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