Council hasn’t paid for land 13 years on
Four of the five owners of the derelict Menlo Castle site by the banks of the River Corrib have yet to be paid by Galway City Council despite the issuing of Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) 13 years ago.
The site was purchased by the local authority for an ill-fated €12 million project which would have transformed the historic 17th century building, while allowing a Dublin-based businessman, Noel Smyth, to build a luxury penthouse on the top floor.
Those plans have since been abandoned and the businessman’s private art collection, set to be offered to the Council as part of the revamp ‘deal’, has since been seized by the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA).
Four families have been waiting for financial compensation from the local authority since they sat through a full public inquiry into the issuing of the CPOs at the Menlo Park Hotel in July 2000.
A number of those involved in the hearing have since passed away and their families’ anger has been compounded by confirmation that the majority shareholder, businessman John Coyle, has received his CPO funding from the City Council.
Five owners were named in the original CPO in 2000 – Mr Coyle, who owned 12/16ths of the site; Michael O’Connell, Coolough; and Padraic Fahy, John and Marie Maloney, and Tom (Peter) Connell, of Menlo village.
The beneficiaries of the deceased land-holders’ wills are understood to be irate that it has taken so long to receive financial compensation.
Cllr Frank Fahy (FG), whose brother holds a sixteenth share of the castle grounds, told the Galway City Tribune yesterday that a full-scale inquiry should be held into the cost of the ill-fated project.
A spokesman for Galway City Council confirmed that Mr Coyle was the only one of the landowners to have received compensation under the CPOs.
But he said that the local authority is “currently finalising payments” with the remaining shareholders under the CPO scheme.
He said Mr Coyle was paid ahead of the local landowners because his documentation was in order.
The castle has been derelict since a fire gutted the building in 1910.
For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.