Value of disused Thornton Hall site increases by €4m in just two years

Thornton Hall was first purchased in 2005 with a view to build a new prison at the site.

A disused 150-acre site in north Dublin has increased in value by €4m over the past two years according to the Government, despite it not being viable for housing development.

Thornton Hall, a site first purchased in 2005 for €30m with a view to building a new prison there to relieve accommodation pressures at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin city, was never built upon by the State.

Some €50m has been spent on the site, including its purchase costs, over the past 17 years.

At the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday, Oonagh McPhillips, the secretary general of the Department of Justice, said that her department felt a prior valuation in 2020 of just €2.7m “didn’t seem reasonable”, hence the new valuation of €6.5m.

“The most recent valuation is based on the existing use and agricultural zoning, and takes into account the quality of the agricultural land, location and road frontage,” a briefing note prepared for the PAC said.

The review, carried out by commercial estate agents Lisneys, “specifically does not take into account any increased value based on a rezoning or alternative state use of the land”, the department said.

Asked how the site had been seen to increase in value by €4m in just two years, Ms McPhillips said that the 2020 valuation, carried out in house by the valuation office, had only been a “desktop exercise”. That particular valuation followed on from one carried out in 2015 which valued the site at €2.4m.

'Future-use value'

In the Irish Prison Service’s annual statement of financial position (SOFP) meanwhile, the value is maintained at its historic cost of €49.3m, something the service says is warranted due to it being “a strategic State asset with potential future use value”.

However, Ms McPhillips acknowledged that the Thornton Hall site, situated roughly 15km north of Dublin city centre, has not been deemed appropriate for housing development by the local authority, Fingal County Council.

She said that while the site may not be suitable for housing, it may work in terms of “other strategic infrastructure”.

Ordinarily, valuations of IPS buildings only take place once every five years, as opposed to the two years since Thornton Hall’s previous estimate.

Ms McPhillips said the State has an overarching interest in a 40-acre plot of the overall 150 acre site “which we’d like to retain as a contingency”.

“The remainder is available for development by the State,” she said, adding that most recently the Department had engaged with the Land Development Agency to that end.

Approval for Thornton Hall’s initial purpose as a new prison site was pulled by the State at the onset of the economic recession in 2008.

Basic maintenance of the farm on site in 2020 cost €325,000, five times the same outlay in 2019.