Council set to fight €116m compo claim
Jackson Way Properties (JWP) will this morning begin telling an arbitration hearing why it believes 22 acres of land compulsorily purchased from it for the South Eastern Motorway are worth more than €5m a piece.
Dun Laoghaire Rathdown (DLR) County Council, which took over the land for the motorway, will argue for an undisclosed but drastically reduced pay-out.
"We believe the claim is vastly inflated and we are going to fight it vigorously," said senior DLR development executive Louis Monks.
The National Roads Authority rather than DLR will pay the eventual bill but ultimately it will come from taxpayers' pockets. The claim represents the entire road improvement and maintenance budget for counties Kerry, Clare, Mayo, Kilkenny, Laois and Cavan for 2002.
It is not just the scale of the claim that has raised eyebrows. The next phase of the Flood Tribunal, due to resume this month, will focus on claims by lobbyist and former government press secretary Frank Dunlop that he paid money to councillors on behalf of developers to influence rezoning decisions on land, including JWP's.
JWP are basing their valuation of the 22-acre site on its industrial zoning, a status upgraded from agricultural in 1998. DLR went to court but failed to stop the arbitration hearing until the tribunal had investigated whether this rezoning was legitimately obtained.
DLR had also argued in court it would have difficulty recouping any compensation paid out which might subsequently be found to be undeserved because it did not know who was behind JWP a point that has also bothered Justice Flood.
Businessman Jim Kennedy, now a tax exile in the Isle of Man, bought the land for Paisley Park and the tribunal believes the same people are behind Paisley Park and JWP.
Kennedy was a long-time associate of disgraced former Fianna Fáil TD Liam Lawlor but Lawlor has denied involvement in JWP.
Frank Dunlop named former solicitor Jim Caldwell as a JWP owner but Mr Caldwell, also living abroad, has refused to answer correspondence from the tribunal. The offices of Binchy Solicitors, where Mr Caldwell was a consultant, were raided by the Criminal Assets Bureau last March and a clerk caught trying to hide a file on JWP was jailed.
Meanwhile, the lands were found to have held the remains of the most substantial medieval castle site and settlement uncovered in Ireland this century. Conservationists, who have been sitting in at the site and keeping bulldozers at bay since archeologists were forced out in August, claim the motorway was rerouted through the site to appease JWP which was complaining about access to its lands.
1988 - Paisley Park Investments buys 106 acres of farmland at Carrickmines for 685,000
1989 - Gardaí investigate claims that buyer spoke of paying bribes for rezoning but find no evidence of crime
1992 - Attempt to have land rezoned for development fails
1994 - Paisley Park liquidated, land taken over by Jackson Way Properties (JWP)
1997 - Second attempt at rezoning fails.
1998 - Third attempt, on 24 acres, succeeds. Rezoned as industrial.
1998 - Plans for South Eastern Motorway announced.
May-Dec - JWP fight plans in High Court and Supreme Court but withdraw in the end.
April 2000 - Frank Dunlop tells Flood Tribunal of bribes paid to councillors for rezoning of lands including Carrickmines
June 2000-March 2001- JWP solicitor refuses to tell Flood who owns JWP in row that ends in Supreme Court with agreement on disclosure of certain information not yet made public.
Mid-2001- Compulary Purchase Order issued for 22 acres of JWP land for motorway
Oct 2001 - JWP lodges compensation claim for 116 million.
March 2002 - Criminal Assets Bureau begin investigation into JWP.
Nov 2001-June 2002 - Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council fail in court action to defer hearing until after Flood completes inquiries.
