Hayes launches new local paper to target Lucan

LIAM HAYES, the founder of The Title and the now defunct Dublin Daily News, has launched a new newspaper to serve the Dublin suburb of Lucan.

The Lucan Gazette went on sale yesterday and expects to sell 7,000 copies a week in the area, which has a population of 40,000 and growing. Mr Hayes said this massive area of the city was still expanding and that its community was not being served by the national press.

The paper plans to build its market shares to around 75% in the next couple of weeks. The figure is in line with the market share held by other papers in Leinster.

Mr Hayes is also planning to launch a newspaper to serve the Blanchardstown area of Dublin in May.

“When you look at an area like Lucan with 40,000 people and Blanchardstown with 80,000 people it is like virgin territory ... and there are no local newspapers serving them directly. So they are like individual counties that have been formed and they have their own needs,” he said.

He said that advertising revenue was coming in from the 400 retail outlets in the nearby Liffey Valley shopping centre and hundreds more in the surrounding area of Lucan.

“These people weren’t advertising in regional or any media. In Lucan and Blanchardstown there are 900 retail outlets and they get a much more attractive rate with us than a national paper and a much higher market penetration.”

Mr Hayes told the Irish Examiner yesterday that the paper was being funded by a number of private individuals, including Peter Quinn, the brother of businessman Sean Quinn, who has taken a 20% stake in the company.

Mr Hayes, the former Meath footballer, was the founder of The Title sports paper and was also editor of Ireland on Sunday before it was sold to the Daily Mail group. Last year he co-founded the Dublin Daily News, but it collapsed after four months on newsstands.