Disused €50m site offered as Garda post in bid to recoup State spend

Thornton Hall in North Dublin was bought by the State for €50m as a prospective prison site.

The Office of Public Works (OPW) pushed a farm in North Dublin as the solution to a Garda accommodation crisis in order to “recover some of €50m expended by the State” on that disused property.

In April 2015, then OPW commissioner Clare McGrath wrote to the secretary-general of the Department of Justice, Noel Waters, asking that Thornton Hall be considered as a replacement for the Dublin Garda Command Centre on Harcourt Square due to the “clear benefits in using the site for this purpose”.

The 150-acre Thornton Hall was first purchased by the State for €30m in 2005 as the proposed site of a new prison. Roughly €50m has been spent on the site to date with no construction ever having taken place.

Earlier this week, the Irish Examiner revealed that €325,000 was spent on basic maintenance of Thornton Hall in 2020, more than five times the 2019 figure.

“I cannot stress strongly enough the need for an early decision on this matter,” Ms McGrath wrote at the time. “It is a very large site and it could easily accommodate the 800-plus staff and their parking requirements.”

Nevertheless, it is believed Thornton Hall was never seriously considered by An Garda Síochána, despite its State-owned status, due to its remote location – about 12km north of the M50.

It is believed Thornton Hall was never seriously considered by An Garda Síochána, despite its State-owned status, due to its remote location – about 12km north of the M50. Picture: Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland.

The gardaí had been expected to vacate the Harcourt Square command centre at the end of their 40-year lease in December 2016 in order to facilitate its redevelopment by the new owners, Hibernia Reit.

When it became clear that deadline could not be met, a new six-year lease worth €36m was agreed, due to expire at the end of 2022.

Documents released under freedom of information show the month following Ms McGrath’s letter, May 2015, the OPW’s chief architect Ciaran O’Connor had instead proposed the expansion of the Garda’s Phoenix Park headquarters as a solution to the problem.

No direct mention is made in the two documents of either the Pino Harris site on Dublin’s Long Mile Road, the gardaí’s own preferred location for the move as of March 2015, or of the site eventually picked less than six months later, Military Road in Kilmainham.

Ms McGrath did state in her letter that the search had been “effectively narrowed down to three possible locations”, adding that acquisition of a site “will be at considerable cost – one of these sites is valued at approximately €25m”.

The OPW had not responded at the time of writing to a request for comment as to how Military Road was chosen when it had not initially been considered, nor as to what the three sites mentioned by Ms McGrath in her letter were.

None of Military Road, Thornton Hall, nor the Phoenix Park HQ were present on the gardaí’s own initial shortlist of more than 10 sites.

Military Road was eventually selected by senior representatives from the gardaí, OPW, and the Department of Justice from a field of six at a meeting on November 25, 2015.

The €86.3m build, which didn’t break ground until February 2020, has faced a great deal of criticism due to its perceived inadequacy in terms of size, capacity, and logistics for the purpose of serving as the new command centre.