Kenny faces huge bill over land row

Chat show host Pat Kenny was tonight facing a multi-million euro bill after settling a costly land row with his elderly neighbour.

Semi-retired solicitor Gerard Charlton agreed to sell the disputed scrubland to the RTÉ broadcaster after 20 years bidding for the quarter-acre site and an ultimately doomed claim for squatter’s rights.

Dublin’s High Court heard the warring neighbours struck a deal over the weekend after former Attorney General Rory Brady SC mediated intense negotiations.

Mr Kenny said he and his wife Kathy agreed to buy the rocky outcrop in the exclusive Dalkey area, known as Gorse Hill, but refused to reveal the cost.

Both sides will pay their own legal fees for the 20-month case. But with the scrubland’s market value set at €2m, RTÉ’s highest paid presenter could be forking out an estimated €3m.

Outside the court, Mr Kenny said the entire episode had been deeply distressing.

He said although he did not “have his day in court”, he stressed assertions made by counsel for the Charlton family opening the case would have been utterly rebutted.

“Some people who were not in court may have thought that this was a David and Goliath battle,” said Mr Kenny.

“It was not. It was a dispute between us and a neighbour who is a successful and experienced solicitor and owner of properties.”

After the brief hearing, Mr Charlton said both he and his wife Maeve were happy the debilitating and traumatic row was over.

“We are very happy with this outcome,” he said in a statement.

“As we wish to bring closure to this very debilitating and traumatic episode in our lives, we will be making no further comment.”

But Mr Kenny said his neighbour’s depiction of their friendship in court, that Mr Charlton would leave his door open and that people like him would drop by, was a little bit fanciful.

Of their future friendship, he added: “We will have civil discourse with the Charltons where it arises and we hope that our neighbourly relations will resume in a civilised way.”

The neighbours have been locked in a bitter row over the ownership of Gorse Hill for several years.

The television and radio presenter claimed squatter’s rights over the quarter-acre after years of failed attempts to buy it from his 73-year-old neighbour.

The dispute came to a head in July 2006 after the Kennys erected an electric gate blocking the Charltons’ access to the site.

Last year, Kenny paid €5,000 for a special lease, known as an intermediate interest, blocking any development of the land.

However, last week the High Court heard Mr Charlton had a paper title deed to the land, and had accused Kenny of effectively stealing the quarter- acre.

On Friday, Ms Justice Maureen Harding Clark offered the parties time to mediate and urged them to think carefully before being asked to give evidence about the row.

She warned them that one would leave the courts having lost entirely, and that they would have to remain neighbours at the end of the case.

In his eight-minute statement, Mr Kenny told reporters that Ms Justice Clark’s wisdom in suggesting mediation set in train the resolution of this difficult and upsetting case.

He added that her visit to Gorse Hill and other relevant properties was crucial to an understanding of claims made by the parties and, in particular, the position he adopted.

Former Attorney General Rory Brady SC, who was locked in talks between the neighbours for 10 hours on Sunday, said he was satisfied that both genuinely believed that they had a legal right to their side.

In a statement read in the High Court, he said both families had felt a real sense of grievance about how they were treated by the other and that, as time went by, that intensified with each new act or statement adding to an unhealthy and unwelcome tension.

“Each family acted in the bone fide belief that the disputed piece of land was their land to be protected and secured from the other,” he added.

Mr Kenny said that Gorse Hill had provided his family and his children with security and privacy for the last 17 years and had been maintained as a wildlife sanctuary by him during that time.

“Following the settlement brokered by the mediator, we are delighted that it will continue to do so,” he added.

“The entire episode has been deeply distressing for all of us and, more than anything, we want to put it behind us.”

The judge earlier congratulated both parties and their legal teams for coming to a resolution and struck out Mr Charlton’s claim and Mr Kenny’s counter claim.