RTÉ News has learned that a company being investigated by the Flood Tribunal is trying to get £90m in compensation from the State. The claim concerns 20 acres of land for use in the final part of the M50 motorway around Dublin.
Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Council has confirmed that an English registered company, Jackson Way Properties, has lodged a compensation claim for up to £92m for the land. The land has been acquired under a compulsory purchase.
The valuation of between £72m and £92m, which was lodged within the past few months, was performed by one of the country's top firms of auctioneers, Hamilton Osbourne King.
A value of £90m puts the land at £4.5m per acre. This would make it some of the most expensive land in Ireland.
Last year RTÉ News was introduced to the solicitor, John Caldwell, as one of the owners of the 106-acre Jackson Way site at Carrickmines. However, nobody officially knows just who owns the land.
At the beginning of this month, Mr Caldwell finally appeared before the Flood Tribunal, having written to them on a number of occasions. He had claimed that he no longer lived in this country and no longer practised here as a solicitor.
Mr Caldwell had been accused by Tribunal lawyers of failing utterly to comply with two orders from Mr Justice Feargus Flood earlier in the year. The 106-acre site was originally bought from a local farmer by the gaming arcade owner, Jim Kennedy, in 1988, for just under £600,000.
RTÉ News has already revealed that Mr Kennedy gave Frank Dunlop over £20,000 in cash at his gaming arcade in Westmoreland Street, to try to get the site re-zoned. At the time, the property company, called Paisley Park and registered in the Isle of Man, failed to get the re-zoning passed.
Mr Caldwell and Jim Kennedy have been linked through other land deals. The former Fianna Fáil TD, Liam Lawlor, has also been linked to the Jackson Way site in newspaper reports. But last night, he denied any involvement in the company or the compensation claim.
Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Council said this afternoon that they would fight the compensation claim "tooth and nail" when it goes before the independent property arbitrator.
