Jesuits to net €150m from move to new UCD site

A DECISION to move the Jesuit College to a new site at University College Dublin will net the order more than €150 million.

At a meeting on Monday night the UCD governing body backed proposals to welcome a relocated Milltown Institute as its new centre for theology.

The move will end the 130-year-old association between the Jesuit College and the Milltown campus.

It will also free up a lucrative tract of land in one south Dublin’s most affluent suburbs and net the order in excess of €150m.

Vice-chancellor of the Institute, Fr John Dardis, said the decision was taken to secure the future of its specialist teaching disciplines. He added the move would realise the ambitions of UCD founder Cardinal John Newman to have religious education taught alongside other university courses.

“This is an important proposal and would bring academic theology onto the campus of UCD, the largest Irish university.

“This project will fulfil Newman’s dream of theology as a university discipline interacting with other academic disciplines,” Fr Dardis said.

The institute is located in Dublin 6 where recent auctions value land, even with restricted development potential, to be worth in excess of €10m an acre.

On this basis the Jesuits could expect more than €150m for the 15-acre property.

As part of the move the trustees of the Institute have promised to establish a €50m fund to recruit world renowned scholars to bolster its academic departments.

It will also pay for a new theology building on the Belfield campus and UCD will provide matching funding to develop this strand of education.

Other proposals include the relocation of the Jesuit Library, on a permanent loan, to Belfield.

The terms of the final agreement are still subject to ongoing discussions but UCD president Dr Hugh Brady reacted positively to the proposal.