The field - Village Magazine

2 4 July 2017

Assets that are social not just

ﬁnancial

Ireland’s housing crisis and swirling property prices

threaten precious and irreplaceable green spaces in our

cities and suburbs with housing developments. House

prices have risen more in the ﬁrst six months of this year

than the entire twelve months of 2016. Recognising the

opportunity for maximum prices to take care of an aged

clerical population and reparation commitments for his-

torical abuse, religious orders are selling off their most

valuable assets (after their faith) - their land. Unfortu-

nately these sites are not vacant lands. Agonisingly they

are where the children go at breaks and lunch-time, they

are the schools’ resort for children’s sports and funding-

fairs and often community resources for dog-walking

and exercise and simple relief from the trafﬁc and com-

motion. Dublin has the highest land valuations and so

has seen the biggest rise in the sale of school land in

recent years. Infamous examples include Oatlands in

Mount Merrion, St Paul’s in Raheny, and Notre Dame in

Churchtown, carried through despite a shortage of

schools in these areas. Holy Faith Convent in Killester,

adjoining the school of the same name, is currently for

sale. The brochure from WK Nowlan Real Estate Advisors

suggests the zoning allows 70 apartments on the attrac-

tive one-hectare site which also contains a large former

convent building. The same agent will sell the former St

Teresa’s school in Blackrock, which closed in 1988, by

auction on 21 July. It describes it as an “Exceptional

Development Opportunity and period residence on

approximately 3.92 hectares (9.7 acres).

Large Residence, Gate lodge and former school build

ings on mature landscaped grounds”. Of course in sales

of mature institutional lands from Kilcoole to All Hallows

WK Nowlan, the reverends’ favourite, publishes expen-

sive marketing materials that suggest that the

opportunities to cover these attractive lands in second-

rate housing is an occasion for public celebration.

There has never been a greater market for education

in this country. The population of the country continues

to grow and projections for new schools continue to

grow. Doctors complain that our children are not exercis-

ing enough. Institutional lands cannot be replaced once

built on. A future generation, richer and more civilised

than outs, will certainly curse us for the betrayal of our

legacy of ﬁne institutions on elegant grounds. So whose

interest is being served by their ubiquitous sales over

the last generation and in its desperation to deal with a

severe housing crisis are the government and local

authorities sleepwalking us into an educational crisis in

Dublin?

by Emma Gilleece

Disgraced religious orders making unholy

sums from selling school green spaces

that betray their public-interest legacy

and crystallise imperatives for a healthy

Church-State relationship

The field

POLITICS

Sold: The Convent Kilcoole

(Estate Agents WK Nowlan)

The Catholic Church owns

€3.743bn of land and property in

the State. It owns or occupies more

than 10,700 properties across the

country and controlled nearly 6,700

religious and educational sites

Holy Faith, Killester

July 2017 2 5

God’s Land

The Catholic Church owns €3.743bn of land and

property in the State. It owns or occupies more

than 10,700 properties across the country and

controlled nearly 6,700 religious and educa-

tional sites. The assets owned by the State’s 26

dioceses and 160-plus congregations and other

district Catholic organisations have been accu

mulated over more than two centuries of

providing religious, educational, health and

other services to a once comprehensively devout

populace. In the case of many orders the congre-

gations transferred the running of institutions to

separate bodies which are invariably charities,

for example the Edmund Rice Schools Trust

(ERST) which was set up in 2008 with responsi-

bility for 95 former Christian Brother schools and

37,000 pupils. Its objective (as stated on its web-

site) is “to foster the advancement of education”.

Interestingly, and showing that Richard Bruton’s

proposal to preclude Catholic schools from dis-

criminating against those who have not been

baptised in the Church is, at least in the case of

the Christian Brothers, pushing an open door, its

schools “promote equality of access and partici-

pation - in other words, children of any faith, or

none, at every level of ability, of any nationality

or ethnic grouping are all welcome in our

schools”.

Addressing the

Redress Scheme

Apart from peak land price, the tiptoe to the auc-

tioneers is driven by clerical abuse and its

financial legacy. The Catholic Church has

surrendered ownership of 44 properties worth

€42m to the State as part of the 2002 Residen-

tial Institutions Redress Act. In the wake of the

2009 Ryan report, the Government wanted the

religious orders to pay half of the total bill of

€1.4bn due for redress payments and legal

costs. But the religious orders still have a long

way to go to reach the €700m the State in the

end demanded. Minister for Education Richard

Bruton spoke out in March of this year, following

the publication of a report by the Comptroller

and Auditor General (C&AG) which showed that

in total €209m has been received by the Irish

Government from religious groups to address

historical child abuse. Bruton condemned reli-

gious organisations for failing to help meet the

costs of residential institutional child abuse. It

might be argued that the Church should have

met sanctions at the upper end of the ﬁnancial

scale and as a result transferred not just owner

ship, but control, of the institutions over which

it is widely accepted it exercised control well out

of proportion to its mandate in today’s society.

Many of the schools, hospitals and clerical-train-

ing colleges could have been transferred to the

Republic, with little unfairness since much of the

money subscribed in the ﬁrst place was for pro-

gressive-secular, as well as religious,

purposes.

In addition the funds raised from these sales

are to meet the challenges arising from declining

and ageing congregations of nuns, brothers and

priests. The average age of the Christian Broth-

ers is 79 and of the Sisters of Mercy 74 with over

three-quarters of the nuns aged over 65. Part of

the cost of maintaining retired members and the

stafﬁng of their care homes will be taken from

the ﬁnal price fetched for the school land sales.

Celestial Figures

The sale of these lands is not only taking away

green spaces from the schools but it also

ignores the need for new and expanding schools

in light of anticipated population growth in

these areas. There are currently 345,550 sec-

ondary-school pupils in the Republic (excluding

PLC students) and 583 secondary schools

(excluding PLC courses). According to the

Department of Education and Skills this ﬁgure

will increase by 8 per cent to 372,715 pupils in

2020 and by a further 10 per cent by 2025, to

410,756. In the few cases where the Department

has stepped in purchase land, it has been to

save the land of primary schools, even though

during the same period primary school pupil

numbers are expected to contract by 8.5%

(- 47,000).

Village decided to look at representative edu

cational land issues in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown,

the local authority area under most pressure.

Zoning

The problem is that a lack of seriousness of pur-

pose and deference to the religious orders and

to the perceived rights of property have led

councillors to lose their nerve in defending the

public interest in the zoning of institutional

lands. These lands should in principle remain in

institutional use. A balanced society depends on

healthy institutions providing facilities for their

users. But our local authorities insist on the

rights of the institutions, including schools, to

build houses on their grounds. Even lands that

are still zoned ‘institutional use’ may, in Dun-

Laoghaire-Rathdown which is typical, be

developed for housing, providing a mere 25% is

retained as open space. The Development Plan

says “There are still a number of large institu-

tions in the established suburbs of the county

which may be subject to development pressure

in the coming years”. The word “still” almost

suggests such places are an affront to nature.

Moreover it is only because the makers of the

plan, the local authority councillors, have

allowed such lands to be developed that they

have come under pressure. Nobody puts

Agonisingly the ﬁelds being

sold are the schools’ resort for

children’s sports and funding-

fairs and often community

resources for dog-walking and

exercise and simple relief from

the trafﬁc and commotion

2 6 July 2017

pressure for housing on the Phoenix Park, for

example, because it is understood that the

public would not tolerate it!

But amazingly most of the lands have not

even remained zoned institutional.

St Mary’s Donnybrook run by the Religious

Sisters of Charity went to the High Court to grant

them a judicial review of the rezoning of their

land to Z15 ‘Community and Institutional

Resource Lands’ (Education, Recreation, Com-

munity, Green Infrastructure and Health) in 2010

for the 2011-2017 Dublin City Council Develop-

ment Plan as the Sisters believed it applied

unfair and restrictive zoning conditions on their

lands. Under the terms of Z15, privately owned

land is treated as resource land for use by the

community. The Sisters claimed this redesigna-

tion unfairly targets their 108 acres across the

city. The zoning had a signiﬁcant impact on the

property interests of the Order.

After this review Dublin City Council in 2013

changed the zoning of St Mary’s Donnybrook

from Z15 to ‘residential’ and included other reli-

giously-run schools including Muckross Park

College, Donnybrook; Alexandra College, Mill-

town, St Louis High School, Rathmines.

They have been pre-emptively rezoned for

housing. It is this zoning of school land as ‘resi-

dential’ that has increased the value and made

it more vulnerable to development. 93 out of 105

secondary schools in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown

for example are land zoned ‘A’ residential, and

25 of the 33 primary schools are zoned residen

tial – this is extraordinary and clearly precarious

if an avalanche of land being sold off for residen-

tial purposes is permitted as it seems legally it

must.

Recent issues with St Joseph’s Clonkeen Col

lege in Dean’s Grange and Our Lady’s Grove, in

Goatstown – both in Dun-Laoghaire-Rathdown,

have caught public attention, most notably with

an RTE Prime Time feature which aired on 29

June. Both Clonkeen College and Our Lady’s

Grove are located on lands with the zoning objec-

tive ‘residential A’, described in the Dun

Laoghaire Rathdown Development plan 2016-

2022 as “To protect and/or improve residential

amenity”.

On 18 May the ERST informed Clonkeen Col-

lege that the sale of 7.5 acres of playing ﬁelds

had been ﬁnalised by the Congregation of Chris-

tian Brothers for €18m. Clonkeen College is a

public school with 550 boys and the opening of

a new extension will increase the roll to 620. The

decision to sell this land had been taken solely

by the Congregation of Christian Brothers. The

ERST Board of Directors has always been clear

that this decision is the responsibility of the Con-

gregation. ERST does not own the land in

question so it could not be its decision to sell it.

Of course the news stung for a school with a

strong reputation for soccer and GAA. After the

sale two of its three playing pitches will be gone

for a housing scheme. The sale here is to meet

the ﬁnal €10m installment of the organisation’s

ﬁnancial commitments to the Redress Scheme.

The Order said it was also proposing to transfer

about 3.5 acres of land (valued at €7.5m) border

ing the college to the ERST for the permanent use

of Clonkeen College. The Order said it would also

donate €1.3m each (inclusive of a €100,000 con-

tribution for school works) to Clonkeen College.

Pulling at every heartstring, even secular ones,

the congregation informed the Board of Manage-

ment that monies raised go to fund the

development of schools in Africa and an unspeci-

ﬁed amount for the upkeep of the mainly elderly

members of the religious order. Under the

Congregation’s proposal, it will transfer the play-

ing ﬁelds attached to the schools to the ERST,

who will hold them in trust for the schools. In

addition, 50% of the net sale of the proceeds of

any Playing Field sold in the future will be offered

to the State. There will be no change to the use

of the land adjoining Clonkeen by the school

until after Summer 2018 at the earliest.

Similarly the sale of Our Lady’s Grove (a mere

fortnight after Clonkeen College) is by the Trust

for the Sisters of Jesus and Mary. Just over 5.4

acres of land has sold to builders Durkan Resi

dential, all of the last green space, attached to

Our Lady’s Grove primary and secondary schools

for €13m. The nuns say they will fund a new

astroturf hockey pitch for the secondary school

at a cost of €600,000. The plot sold could accom-

modate an estimated 70-80 ‘homes’; a mix of

houses and apartments. This means that there

will be no green space attached to the schools

and no room for expansion in the future. The pri-

mary school already has so little recreational

space that children are sadly required, for safety

reasons, to take turns running in the yard, at

break time. The secondary school will be at a

particular disadvantage as it is the only public

girls secondary school in the area and is sur-

rounded by private girls schools with excellent

facilities. The order sold a ﬁrst tranche of land in

2012 and a retirement home and residential

development have been built. It should be

pointed out that the Order does not owe any

money as part of the redress scheme so it is hard

to know why the land is being sold. The Goats-

town area is in need of more public services and

infrastructure for the many young families in the

ever fashionable neighbourhood. Intensiﬁcation

of use of the remaining school lands will exacer-

bate the pressure on schools and facilities in this

area. Additionally there will be signiﬁcant trafﬁc

through the school from the new houses leading

to environmental and safety issues for the chil-

dren and residents.

Transport Minister Shane Ross TD invited par

ents’ representatives from Our Lady’s Grove to

meet with Minister Richard Bruton TD in Leinster

House on 21 June. Also present were Catherine

Martin TD, Josepha Madigan TD, Senator Neale

Richmond, Senator Gerry Horkan, and Councillor

Seamus O’Neill. Minister Bruton adamantly

POLITICS

Christian Brothers schools now

promote equality of access and

participation - in other words,

children of any faith, or none,

at every level of ability, of any

nationality or ethnic grouping

are all welcome in their schools

“Exciting development opportunity at former St Teresa’s School, Temple Road, Blackrock,

Co Dublin”

July 2017 2 7

refused to concede that the area was in need of

investment from the Department of Education.

Approximately 1,000 houses and apartments

will be built in (and on the boundaries of) the

catchment area over the coming few years.

Shortsightedly, he said that when the fruits of

the development mature, only then will it be up

to the local public authority to source a site for

new schooling. His attitude deﬁnitively dis-

counts the factual reality that institutional lands

and playing ﬁelds are a dwindling resource that

simply cannot be replaced.

Bruton also made the point that urban schools

should lower their expectations regarding green

space. The Minister, a rural TD, stated that a rural

school starting from a green ﬁeld site would most

likely have green space due to rural land being

cheaper than urban land. However this was

utterly irrelevant as urban schools do not have

this luxury, due to increased land cost. National

policy must address the potential iniquity of

urban children not having the same opportuni-

ties in sport and outdoor activities as rural

children. Parents and neighbours of Our Lady’s

Grove have started a blog and online petition.

Solutions

The Department should purchase the land, per-

haps, if viable, renting out facilities to clubs to

generate a return for state investment. This was

the solution found when the Holy Faith Order

informed St Brigid’s National School in Grey

stones that they intended to sell adjoining lands

of 0.6 acres in 2015. The night before it was to be

sold at auction by Savills the Board of manage-

ment was informed that the Department had

secured the land in a deal with the convent. It

was an extreme example - the school had very

little land and its space per student was just one

quarter of the Department’s guidelines.

This topical issue evokes important choices

for a modernising society, how to balance Church

and State, the environment with money, private

interests with the public interest. Green Party

Deputy Leader and TD for Dublin Rathdown Cath-

erine Martin said “Minister Bruton needs to work

closely with the local Authority to provide greater

protection for the open space requirements of

institutional lands in the County”. Barry Ward,

Fine Gael councilor for Dun Laoghaire Rathdown,

told Village “I think there is a high-stakes game

of chicken going on here between certain reli-

gious orders and the Department of Education,

but I am not sure that the answer is for the

Department to blink ﬁrst and spend considera-

ble amounts of taxpayers’ money buying large

tracts of land. It seems to me that religious

orders involved in this are trying to avoid their

legitimate obligations to the State. Religious

orders that still owe the State money for past

sins, and that are trying to offset selected assets

against their liabilities are gambling irresponsi-

bly with future students’ sporting facilities and

open spaces. I do not think that organisations

indebted to the State should be allowed to sac-

riﬁce future school children to help maintain

their bottom line. The reality is that the orders

have many assets that could be liquidated to sat-

isfy their financial liabilities; it is not a

coincidence that the assets they have chosen are

the most emotional ones and the ones that could

exert most political pressure. Yes, the Minister

for Education should intervene, but by making it

clear to religious orders that they already have a

good deal on their liabilities to abuse victims and

that taking further advantage of that will not be

tolerated”.

Blanket protection should be afforded these

lands, until a proper national debate on this

issue takes place. The public interest can be

served by public ownership, though this should

have been guaranteed a generation ago when

Bertie Ahern and Michael Woods sold the state

short. More realistically the national interest and

the common good can be pursued by mature

rezoning. Compensation is not always payable

for downzonings in the public interest. If the

Orders challenge such downzonings it would be

an appropriate opportunity for a debate and for

the state to assert the primacy of its agenda and

the consequences of clerical abuse for the role

of the Church in this society.

Certainly all the lands detailed in this article

are private lands and the usual property inter-

ests are concerned that councillors’ using their

power to simply down-zone lands to preserve a

local objective would open them to compensa

tion claims though there seems no ethical

reason, in a country that purports to enshrine

the overriding common good, and has a rising

population of children, why institutions given

land for educational purposes should ever have

been encouraged, or even allowed, to transfer it

for residential development. It illustrates a delin-

quent attitude on behalf of our private

representatives, perhaps better categorised as

‘private representatives’, and their deference to

the needs, particularly ﬁnancial of institutions,

particularly religious ones even in the face of the

common good.

Nevertheless and encouragingly, as Village

was going to print, Councillor John Bailey (FG)

was to put forward a motion on 3 July to provide

a variation to the Development Plan to downzone

lands at Clonkeen College.

Unless a robust vision of the public interest in

institutional lands, especially educational lands,

is promoted there is a danger that once again the

dysfunctional relationship between Ireland’s

Church and its state will be to the long-term dis-

advantage of its vulnerable children.

Clonkeen College

Our Lady’s Grove, Goatstown