April 2016 5
News Miscellany
Villager
"Of Pearse and Connolly I admire the latter the
most. Connolly was a realist, Pearse the direct
opposite. I would have followd Connolly to
hell had such action been necessary. But I
honestly doubt… I would have followed
Pearse".
- Michael Collins
Intellectuals utterly
and terribly abroad
If anyone quotes “changed utterly”, Villager
will spit. All. Changed. Utterly. Terrible.
Beauty. Born. Nothing but cliché.
Though he’s never written anything that
bad, Michael D Higgins is famously Ireland’s
worst poet but leading public intellectual, even
if his only original idea about the Rising seems
to have been that imperialist triumphalism
hasn’t been adequately interrogated. And Vil-
lager thought the sixties and seventies were
about little else.
In fact Michael D seems to be Ireland’s only
stayathome public intellectual. And he is
thoughtful about, and as President appropri-
ately immersed in, Ireland in 2016. Colm
Tóibin, Roy Foster, Bob Geldof – all tourists
with their fingers off the pulse of Ireland 2016
serve as mouthpieces for a nation, externally
and increasingly internally too.
Rooted in an era when they though the coun-
try irreformable they now seem uncomfortable
in gauging the extent of its modernisation.
They nod vituperatively, as they should, at the
homelessness crisis, and suchlike, but really
they don’t have a feel for the country now.
While they have been admirable forces for pro
-
gress in civil liberties it is not clear what view
they take on contemporary issues of equality
of social and economic rights. Fintan O’Toole
spends much of the year in Princeton, New
Jersey but, Villager thinks, keeps his feet on
the ground enough to still know what it makes
sense to get angry about.
1921
As Village was going to print the Irish Times’
incipient new political editor, Pat “I’ve never
been the same since Mara passed on” Leahy,
reported that, “Fianna Fáil leader Micheál
Martin is to tell acting Taoiseach Enda Kenny a
Fine Gael minority government is the only
option his party can support.
It is understood Mr Martin is going to
demand the acting Taoiseach withdraw his
comments that Fine Gael cannot support a
minority Fianna Fáil government”.
If it’s going to support Fine Gael why is
Martin so concerned that Fine Gael shouldn’t
say it wouldn’t support Fianna Fáil?
English muffin
As Village went to press the still environment
minister, Alan Kelly, was to join TV3 presenter
Glenda Gilson, model Sarah Morrissey, soccer
pundits Eamon Dunphy and Johnny Giles, Euro-
vision hopeful Nicky Byrne, and former Ireland
soccer international Ray Houghton on the cat-
walk as a model for the Freedom Of Dublin
Charity Fashion Show is in aid of the John Giles
Foundation and the Capuchin Day Centre for
Homeless People. Both charities are fronted
by Freemen of the capital. “Later on tonight I’m
partaking in a fashion show, your public will
be delighted to hear”, Mr Kelly intoned to RTE’s
Today with Sean O’Rourke, as Village was
finalising his copy.
“It’s being run by Emma English who is a
partner of John Delaney’s”, he noted,
confidence-inspiringly.
Minded games
The same Kelly announced an organisational
review of An Bord Pleanála last year, largely
playing to the rural one-off housing brigade’s
hopes of decentralisation (ie an end to plan-
ning), though the terms of reference didn’t
embrace anything so populist.
The launch of the Review Group’s report last
month escaped the media, now retired envi-
ronment editor Frank McDonald only appears
in the Irish Times on special occasions.
Tellingly, An Bord Pleánála received 1979
new cases in 2015, 1810 in 2014 but 6664 in
boomtime 2007. The report noted without
enthusiasm that large numbers of judicial
reviews under both the Habitats Directive and
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Direc-
tives and that a move to implementation of the
Aarhus Convention Bill, which facilitates
public participation in planning, makes it less
likely An Bord Pleanála will get its legal costs
in future litigation taken against it. it recom-
mends simplification of the law through
codification.
NEWS
Tourists
Soccer royalty
6 April 2016
Chairman Gregory Jones QC proved a solid
pair of hands and nothing too radical emerged.
the report contains over 100 recommendations
across a number of themes, including: a more
cohesive planning system, communication
with stakeholders and an improved legislative
base.
The Group recommended amending Section 37
(1) (b) of the 2000 Planning Act to allow the
Board to say that “it is minded to grant permis-
sion”, but to seek further information on a
specific item, in order to allow a consent to be
granted for an unclear application. This would
annoy the EU and its EIA regime which don’t
like anything getting through whose implica-
tions haven’t been clearly assessed for the
scrutiny of the public. But An Bord Pleanála
has never been excited about the EU’s plan-
ning agenda and its tedious public-participation
obsession.
The past is our future
Bosses at listed housebuilder Cairn Homes are
getting their hard-earned payday under a
"founders' shares" incentive scheme set up by
the company.
Cairn shares closed over 112.5c for more
than 15 consecutive days in March, meaning
that the performance condition for the payout
has been met.
The scheme runs over seven years, and the
men are only entitled to a payout if the com-
pany achieves a 12.5pc increase in total
shareholder return (encompassing share price
rises and dividends), calculated in a test period
each year on a compound basis. The IPO price
was €1.
Under the scheme, the holders of founders'
shares, chief executive Michael Stanley, exec-
utive director Alan McIntosh, and chief
commercial officer Kevin Stanley, are entitled
to 20pc of the total increase in the company's
market capitalisation since its IPO, with the
increase calculated from a test period running
from March 1 to June 30. Cairn is well-posi-
tioned to meet suppressed demand for
housing as it owns a business park in Artane,
Dublin 5, and development land in Galway and
Killiney in south Dublin.
What is less well known is that the Stanleys
controlled Stanley Holdings, which built Bel-
mayne, the country’s most sexily marketed
apartment development which required reme-
dial fire-safety measures – partly paid for by
state-owned NAMA - and the temporary evac-
uation of around 240 residents in 2012.
Good to see they’re moving on, and up.
Not Allsops
Ordinary folk will be celebrating the return to
Ireland of whit-shoe auctioneer Sothebys
which took a break from Éire during the coun-
try’s recent economic difficulty. According to
the Sunday Business Post it is once again “to
roll out its high-end property business to Ire-
land, offering ‘exceptional’ and ‘exotic’ homes
only”.
Old masters – of bad practice
Its cousin in sniffiness, Christies, is the
agent for the export and proposed sale by auc-
tion of nine paintings and a drawing - including
paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, David Teniers
II and Francesco Guardi - from the Alfred Beit
Foundation’s collection, mostly based in Russ-
borough House, Co Wicklow. Scandalously,
and in breach of established good practice
internationally, the sale is intended to meet
ongoing upkeep costs at the Blessington man-
sion, one of the finest historic houses in
Ireland. Two items have already been sold and,
while a controversy erupted last year that
averted the sale of the remainder, the Founda-
tion stubbornly intends to auction four more
over the summer. The Judith Woodward-
headed foundation considers that it would
have to pay Christies a penalty if it doesn’t go
ahead with the auction. The problem is that
Kildare-based Christies, whose website says
it “maintains offices in the UK and Ireland”
doesn’t have a licence from Ireland’s Property
Services (Regulation) Authority to provide
“property services” (defined as service for the
auction of property whether land or otherwise)
as required under ss 28 and 29 of the 2011
Property Services (Regulation) Act. It seems to
be a criminal offence to hold yourself as able
to auction goods in Ireland without such a
licence. So the Foundation need have no fear
of the consequences of doing the right thing...
Six-feet Underwood
One of the most colourful figures in the Dublin
property world, Marie Underwood, died in
March 2016, outliving her Southampton-born
husband Ivor by ten years, and leaving an only
daughter, Lisa.
Always rumoured, but never confirmed, to
have been a demi-glamorous Theatre Royal
‘Royalette’ dancer, Marie retained a distinctive
MODE to the end, in Elizabeth Taylor-style tur-
baned hats. The Underwoods” with their
cream and maroon vintage 1950s Wolsey car
became a phenomenon on the Dublin’s macho
property scene.
As enthusiastic Irish Georgian Society mem-
bers in the 1960s the Underwoods were
inspired by Desmond and Mariga Guinness to
buy run-down Georgian buildings across
northside Dublin, including on all four sides of
Mountjoy Sq, Capel St, Henrietta St and North
Great Georges St. They also snapped up south-
side properties in Kildare St, Baggot st, Talbot
St, three on Parliament St and three on Dame
St, as well as the prominent No 1 Merrion Sq
and many other houses in Dun Laoghaire,
Dalkey and Rathmines. The full number was
estimated at 70.
Collecting buildings was the Underwoods’
passion. The practicalities of investing in new
uses and recovering income proved challeng-
ing. In most of their northside Georgian
buildings they took the approach of doing min-
imal maintenance and putting in caretakers.
There was always abortive talk of great plans
including a museum in 3 Henrietta St. Part-
time residents of Dalkey, Co Dublin, the
Underwoods established tax residency on Las
Palmas in the Canaries.
All over the city property owners were
becoming exercised by the problem of being
beside an neglected Underwood building. The
City Council did the Corpo equivalent of losing
its patience.
Compulsory Purchase Orders on the two
Henrietta St houses resulted in years of legal
conflict.
There was a high-profile spat with Senator
David Norris in North Great Georges St result-
ing in legal action over a rear extension they
had built in breach of building regulations.
Realising that it was all to much, the Under-
woods adopted a policy of leasing and then
selling buildings, often unwisely.
After Ivor’s death in 2006 his estate was
values at €70 million, with properties already
held by Marie or transferred to their daughter
NEWS
Boomtown property tryst
Demi-glamour
April 2016 7
Lisa. There is now little of the property empire
left in family ownership.
While in many cases buildings acquired by
the Underwoods would otherwise have fallen
to less scrupled developers, the story is one of
lost opportunity, and good intentions
unmatched by good advice.
Village office will fall down
AirAsia-owner, Tony Fernandez, serves as chair-
man of QPR football club and owns Tunes
Hotels, a cut-price though high-quality hotel
chain. Through his Malaysia-based company,
Boteco Holdings he owns the Ormond Hotel,
setting for the Sirens scene in Joyce’s Ulysses,
next to Village’s office. Having been turned
down for 190 rooms it is now in for planning to
demolish its mid-twentieth-century façade and
replace it with a 120-room new hotel.
Rich people to get what they
want, and richer
Meanwhile across the river, upmarket food
‘emporium’ barrister-favourite Fallon and Byrne
is surfacing behind the façade of the Clarence
Hotel-owned Dollard House, one of Ireland’s
first steel-framed buildings. The Clarence’s
loans have recently been bought at a discount
from NAMA by Bono, the Edge and Paddy McK-
illen after the lineup dropped Derek Quinlan
– one-time antagonist of McKillen over the May-
bourne Hotels Group which included London’s
Savoy and Claridge’s – after he got into compli-
cations with the state-owned bad bank.
Ulster say no to poison
A woman in Northern Ireland was given a three
month suspended sentence in early April
having pleaded guilty to two charges – procur-
ing her own abortion by using a poison, the
abortion pill, and supplying a poison with
intent to procure a miscarriage. Had she lived
in any other jurisdiction in the UK she would not
have been brought before the courts, as she
would actually have been able legally to obtain
services on the NHS. Apparently, the woman
trusted the people she lived with enough to tell
them about her situation, and they contacted
the police.
15 love, the planetarium
The OPW has made a planning application to
Dublin City Council for the construction of a
planetarium at the rear of the former UCD block
at Earlsfort Terrace. Unfortunately they also
want to convert a unique former Tennis court
bequeathed to the State by Rupert Guinness in
1935 to an exhibition space, removing, irrevers-
ibly, its principal features.
Flyaway planet
There was a 20% increase in greenhouse-gas
emissions from Moneypoint in 2015, as it was
favoured for electricity generation due to its
greater availability and cheapness to run. Gas
is about half as carbon-intensive as coal. It con-
tributed to a 5.3% increase in industry
emissions year –on-year. Meanwhile, Ryanair
released 7.4m tonnes up from 6.6m the previ-
ous year, the biggest increase of any airline in
Europe and Dublin Airport is to pursue a nearly
expired 2007 permission for a new €320 mil-
lion runway, to be built north of the current one
by 2020, to facilitate the almost exclusively rel-
atively wealthy travellers and their bid to drown
the planet in gratuitous greenhouse-gas-gen-
erated sea-rise. Aircraft belchings of course
aren’t calculated as part of national emissions.
Yet.
Lucindo
Who lodged the spurious complaint against
Lucinda Creighton that she got a gift of dis
-
counted legal services and didn’t declare it?
SIPO decided at its March 14 meeting not to
pursue the complaint on grounds “there was no
factual basis on which to support it” but it will
shortly reveal the person behind the allega-
tions. The Indo and Sindo published no fewer
than eight articles about it, presumably
because someone thinks Denis O’Brien sup
-
ports Enda Kenny who hates Lucinda who hates
Denis O’Brien.
NUI Gal way or the high way
A senior member of administration at NUI
Galway has made a complaint under the 2014
whistleblower Act about alleged irregularities
in the appointment of people to senior teaching
and administrative positions.
The controversy is the latest in a succession
of rows between staff and management at NUIG
which has seen the Equality Tribunal make seri-
ous findings of gender discrimination against
the college. Other cases by women alleging dis-
crimination are making their way through the
tribunal and at least one has been lodged with
the High Court forcing the embattled NUIG pres-
ident, Jim Browne, to issue a statement in recent
weeks insisting that he has no evidence that
discrimination is widespread within NUIG.
He was responding to a letter from the vice-
president of SIPTU, Gene Mealy, which
represents more than 700 workers in NUIG,
claiming that “widespread problems of discrim
-
ination persist across all grades of staff” and
that there has been “a proliferation of precari-
ous employment contracts which we believe are
inherently discriminatory”. The union criticised
management for failing to engage with the
State’s industrial relations machinery. Browne
rejected the assertions by Mealy and urged the
union to “bring any evidence of discrimination
to the attention of our director of HR and organi-
sational development, Chris McNairney. I am
sure he will investigate them thoroughly and
professionally”.
Regular reports in the Connacht Tribune have
posed questions over the appointment of staff
through consultants, Results Through People
Ltd., at an annual cost of €180,000, by the
School of Law for just 22 months work. Last
year PR firm Drury/Porter Novelli, was commis-
sioned to supplement the five-person NUIG
communications department when the college
became the centre of an internatinal media
storm over a health questionnaire for job appli-
cants which included questions about women’s
menstrual cycles, and gynaecological and pros-
tate problems. The college insisted that the firm
was contracted to fill a gap caused by the
appointment of former communications chief
Caroline Naughton to the position of academic
secretary.
Poison pills
Arcadia in trouble

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