As prominent site in Kilmainham sits vacant, council liable for tens of thousands in fines

On a recent Wednesday, the land at 51A Old Kilmainham Road was a sloping field of high grasses and wildflowers hidden behind a black hoarding.

This spot at the south-east corner of the junction with the South Circular Road has been vacant at least back to 2003, according to satellite imagery from Google Earth.

The other three corners are busy with a Four Star Pizza, Cool Hand Coffee Roasters, and – until it closed last year – the restaurant Urban 8.

Pat Galligan, who has lived near the site for about five years, says he'd heard there had been a plan for the Irish Prison Service to use the site decades ago.

In any case, Galligan said he wasn't happy it was just sitting there vacant. "I'm surprised there haven't been a few of the lads down there with their ciders and bonfires of a Saturday," he said last Wednesday.

The cause of the site's long-term vacancy appears to be restrictions attached to its title, which are "the subject of on-going engagement" between the council and the Prison Service, a Department of Justice spokesperson said by email on Tuesday.

"This work is nearing resolution," a Dublin City Council spokesperson said the same day, "and once finalised Dublin City Council will be in a position to move forward with plans for the redevelopment of the site and realise its full development potential for a supported housing scheme."

In the meantime, the government owners – first the Minister for Justice, and more recently the council – have racked up tens of thousands of euro a year in fines for not doing anything with it.

A long road to nowhere

The Department of Justice spokesperson did not answer a query about what the Irish Prison Service's plan had been, decades ago, for the site in Kilmainham.

"This matter is the subject of on-going engagement between the Irish Prison Service and Dublin City Council and in the circumstances, the Department is not in a position to comment further at this time," the spokesperson said in respone to a series of questions about the site.

Property records from Tailte Éireann show the Minister for Justice as the owner of the site from 2010.

Since "owner" can mean different things, in this case, just to be specific, it means the minister held "good leasehold", a form of title that guarantees the leaseholder's own interest, but doesn't verify the original landlord's right to grant the lease.

The Irish Prison Service falls under the Department of Justice, and at some point the IPS began talking to the council about transferring the site to it, for a nominal value, according to an An Bord Pleanála inspector's report.

The plan was for the council to then turn the site over to the housing charity Novas Initiatives, to build social housing.

In 2015, Novas Initiatives applied – successfully – to build 13 apartments on the site, in a building reaching to four stories, with a commercial/retail space, presumably on the ground floor.

Since all this was in train, the Prison Service said it was surprised when, in 2018, the council hit it with a €27,000 fine, since it had been added to the council's Vacant Sites Register, according to the An Bord Pleanála inspector's report. It appealed this but lost.

"DCC informed the IPS that they required freehold title to the site," the inspector's report says. "This was not possible as the site is a leasehold with approximately 750 years to run."

"DCC are seeking confirmation from Novas as to whether a leasehold title would be acceptable," the 2019 report says. "On receipt of this confirmation, the site can be transferred to DCC."

Property records show the leasehold for the site was transferred to the council in January 2020. A council report says the deal was done for €10.

That left the council liable for the vacant sites levies on the site, should it remain vacant – and it did.

When independent Councillor Nial Ring asked the council in 2023 about Vacant Site Levies on council-owned sites, the chief executives reply showed €77,000 demanded in relation to 51A Old Kilmainham. That's 7 percent of the €1.1 million market value of the site.

Novas, meanwhile, appeared to be moving ahead with the housing project on the site.

In 2020, it applied for, and got, a four-year extension to its planning permission. In 2021, a council report said the Department of Housing had "approved Stage 1 funding for this project under the Capital Assistance Scheme". In 2022, Novas put out a tender for a company to do the building works.

But somewhere along the way, the project went off the rails. Novas has not responded to queries sent on 9 July, asking why the project fizzled out.

Whether the funding also stalled for want of freehold title is unclear. Neither Novas nor the council answered queries about that.

The Department of Justice on Tuesday declined to answer queries about who has the freehold title, and whether there were any terms in the Prison Service's lease on the site that restricted what could be built there.

But the council spokesperson said that, "The primary issue affecting the progress of development has been restrictions attached to the title," and that "These restrictions have limited Dublin City Council's ability to progress housing delivery on the site."

The council has been engaging with the Department of Justice and the Chief State Solicitor's Office to "address these title matters", the spokesperson said. This work is "nearing resolution", he said.

However, the planning permission for the site has lapsed. And Novas "withdrew from the project in 2024 and is no longer involved in proposals for the site", the council spokesperson said.

A 17 June report to councillors indicates that the council still plans to develop the site with an (unnamed) housing charity, but that the project is "on hold" due to "title issues".

In the meantime, the 7 percent Vacant Sites Levy has been phased out in favour of the Residential Zoned Land Tax.

The 2026 RZLT map shows 51A Old Kilmainham is subject to this annual charge of 3 percent of the land's market value.

Which, if the site is still valued at €1.1 million, as it was in 2020, would amount to a 3 percent fine (€33,000) a year for the council to pay as the site sits idle.