Council’s park sale breached guidelines

LIMERICK City Council breached Department of Finance guidelines in the manner it sold off a part of the People’s Park, according to the Finance Minister Brian Cowen in a letter to Junior Health Minister Tim O’Malley.

The council completed the sale of a 0.44-acre site at the park for €1.57 million to Reidy Civil Engineering earlier this year having agreed on a sale in 2002 at a time the council did not even own the site.

The sale was not put out to public tender and a slightly larger adjoining site raised e2.85m when it was sold to another developer on the open market.