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A DEVELOPER THAT illegally demolished a 19th century convent a decade ago is caught up in a planning dispute over a proposal to build more than 140 apartments.
Kimpton Vale is a Dublin-based builder headed up by businessman Laurence Keegan that was nearly wound up in 2011 but instead had its loans transferred to bad bank Nama.
In November, the company lodged fresh plans with Fingal County Council to build 143 housing units at Clonsilla, near Blanchardstown in the capital’s west.
The development, which was intended to include four apartment blocks, was granted planning permission late last year, however that decision has now been challenged by an appellant named Margaret Nolan. The case has gone to An Bord Pleanála and is not due to be decided until the end of September.
In planning documents lodged with the council, the company said that the average cost for three units would be just over €177,000, suggesting a total development cost of about €8.5 million for the 143 housing units.
The project was also to include a car park with 247 spaces, green areas and infrastructure work around the area.
Kimpton has been trying to progress work at the site for years. Some of the developments previously planned for the site would have seen over 300 units built.
Convent controversy
Kimpton hit headlines in 2006 when it bulldozed a 19th century convent in Terenure, Dublin without planning consent. The convent was part of a three-acre site that was sold for over €15 million.
The local council started the process of giving the site protected status in October, however two weeks later workers employed by Kimpton began to bulldoze the 1830s convent without planning permission at 7am on a Saturday.
Council inspectors arrived on the site two hours later, however by that stage most of the building was gone and the inspectors ruled that the rest should be demolished on public-safety grounds.
In 2008, Kimpton pleaded guilty to illegally knocking down the building and received a fine of €1,000.
Keegan, who heads up Kimpton, was previously restricted in his actions as a company director for five years from early 2004 after a firm called Lido Construction, for which he had served as a director, made a €7 million settlement with Revenue for the under-declaration of VAT.
He had left his role at the company nine months before the settlement was made. Keegan also made a personal settlement for €84,000 with Revenue in 2004 for the under-declaration of VAT.
Kimpton Vale did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Fora.
The firm looked like it may be wound up in 2011 when one of its creditors, a company called Talsar Developments, made a petition to the High Court. However Kimpton continued to trade and the petition was eventually struck out.
The then loss-making Kimpton’s loans were transferred to toxic debt agency Nama in December 2010.
By the end of 2015 the firm had total liabilities of just over €13 million and it made a loss of nearly €100,000 last year, according to the company’s most recent accounts.
One of the creditors of the company is Keegan himself, who is owed more than €6 million, while just over €8 million is owed to banks. Nama is listed as holding security over the Clonsilla site, as well as personal guarantees worth more than €16 million.
The accounts also note the company employed just one person during the year, who was paid about €45,000. Larger amounts were paid out before the company’s loans entered Nama. In 2009 a quarter of a million euro was paid out to two employees, while five staff shared over €800,000 the year before.
Directors payments came to over €3 million in 2005 and 2006, while pension contributions over the two-year period amounted to €7.6 million. Kempton only has two listed directors, Laurence and Mairead Keegan.
Written by Paul O’Donoghue and posted on Fora.ie
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If they didn’t hide the outcomes to save their own mistakes than it should not have been a problem. Dishonesty from the HSE is the problem.
@Hans Vos: no the problem, as with cervical screening is that NO test is 100% accurate and you will always have false negatives. It’s nobody’s ‘fault’.
@Ciaran Bolger: I agree that no test is 100% accurate. But hiding the results so woman didn’t know their test was suspicious and ultimately ended up in full blown cancers was.
@Ciaran Bolger: false negatives might be nobody’s fault but covering up certainly was somebody’s fault.
@Hans Vos: In a blame culture like ours, informing a patient of a false negative will likely result in a legal action and collapse of the service- thats what they were afraid of , and that is what is going to happen.
The breast screening program was hit with 15 solicitors letters- best course of action would be to stop “look back” audits -to protect the programs.
@paul kelly: So you saying that women who are in the past willingly misleaded can’t have their rights executed?
@Hans Vos:
Of course you can , it just will cost millions.
@paul kelly: Don’t you think that being honest from the beginning could have avoided all the hassle. That’s the problem with the HSE . There are people, and don’t get me wrong not everybody, who think that they are more important than the truth. When it’s going wrong than they blame : 1 Somebody else.
2 Politics
.3 The system.
4 The cost.
And I can get on and on but they never blame them self.
@Hans Vos: No, being honest with a look back audit showing the screen to be a false negative will lead to a substantial payout.
Solicitors are looking at a definite new income stream.
@paul kelly: contrary to you I like to be honest.
@Hans Vos: Oh I believe honesty is the ideal , but it will cost hundreds of millions, the collapse of screning and the deaths of far more women.
@paul kelly:
Make that 16 from Monday next. There will be no collapse of the service that’s scaremongering. I never knew there was a look back service nobody ever mentioned it OR A REVIEW
I really hope that this is not:
A) Another case of our healthcare system failing women
B) People jumping on the bandwagon hoping to make a few euro!
@Jenny Kelleher: I have to disagree with your statement about looking for a few quid… in most cases including the cervical cancer cases the hse deny everything and in fact try to cover up what has happened…. nobody goes to jail, nobody is held responsible… the only retribution these people receive is a pay out… and let me tell you that it’s not an easy decision to make about bringing a case because it is a long and very difficult process.. and is even more so difficult when all you can think is,what if people think I’m doing this just for money !!
@Tommy Byrne: There was no cover up. There were false negative results discovered retrospectively (an inevitable feature of any screening programme), some women were told of this others weren’t due to failure of HSE procedures. There is no suggestion that the women’s outcomes were adversely affected as the prior false negatives were only discovered on review after a diagnosis of cancer had been made. The lawsuits pertain to the false negatives themselves. If a situation emerges where there are payouts for every false negative result then the screening programmes will be driven to bankruptcy as false negatives are an inherent statistical feature of large scale screening programmes.
@Damon16: in the cervical cancer cases it most definitely was a cover up … and who is to say there isn’t something similar happening here ? We don’t know the facts of any of the future cases that may come of this. All we are hearing is one side of the story so far… so to judge people as only in it for a few quid is very wrong
@Tommy Byrne:
Indeed ..very wrong
The medical profession and the Gov need to do a better job explaining to the public the difference between a screening test and a diagnostic test. A screening test such as breast check will invariably have some false negatives results. The Gov need to introduce legislation capping or limiting claims in the context of screening programmes. If they don’t the HSE is the HSE are going to stop running screening tests and or not bring in new screening tests due to legal exposure. This will cost many lives.
Alternatively, push for a national Irish healthcare system that looks after patients to internationally recognised, excellent standards. Adopt a class action suit with one aim; justice and improved medical standards. Don’t force individuals to take individual cases and slog through alone. Too many people end up going abroad – men who need hip replacements badly, and have been waiting in pain on long lists, for example. Don’t inflict symphysiotomy on women while the rest of the world is not crippling their own citizens with decades-old clumsy practices. Don’t sweep the outcomes under the carpet until a few suffering families have to spend all their resources to highlight real and ongoing issues and appeal to higher courts separately until they die and the files are closed.
There are lots of pros and cons to screening. Some medics (and not crackpots) would argue against most kinds of screening and a lot of unnecessary screening takes places privately (ie a money spinner). Total transparency and full disclosures are needed in public and private health care.
Do they not have ambulances to chase?
It’s no good in trying to shift the blame for problem onto women who had smear checks carried out on systemic failure on the HSE full stop.
The circus continues with the legal profession rubbing their hands with glee ,the government have to take responsibility ,this has been kept back from the media to prevent the effects it may have on the referendum .again no accountability ,put your trust in LEO and simon everything will just be fine
My god,these people think the public are fools.
@@mdmak33: Clearly some are.
Where were the tests carried out?
Were they the cheapest option?
@The Irish Bull: tested in Ireland and results read in Ireland. Totally different process to cervical screening.
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