Sheehy claims defamation - Village Magazine

12 April 2015

S Village was going to print a

writ threatening defamation

proceedings against Gabriel

Dooley was lodged in the High Court

by Simon McAleese Solicitors acting for

former Wicklow county manager, Eddie

Sheehy.

During the same week the editor of

the Wicklow Times, Shay Fitzmaurice

received a letter from solicitors McGuire

McNeice acting for Councillor Pat Vance

in which the politician is seeking an

apology and damages and a written

undertaking not to repeat any further

defamatory statements such as those he

claimed were published in the newspa-

per in April 2014.

In the articles concerned, Fitzmaurice

wrote about numerous allegations circu-

lated to all elected members of Wicklow

County Council by Dooley concerning

named councillors and oﬃcials.

The plenary summons lodged by

Ray Ryan BL for Sheehy with the court

seeks punitive and aggravated damages

against Dooley for malicious falsehood

and conspiracy and the costs of any

action that might follow.

Just days after Sheehy announced

his decision to retire earlier this year

Dooley, a prominent auctioneer, circu-

lated another detailed set of questions

and complaints concerning the involve-

ment of named oﬃcials and councillors

in major property developments in Bray

and Greystones.

The forty-four questions submitted by

Dooley centred on the manner in which

two of Ireland’s leading developers,

Sean Dunne and Sean Mulryan, acquired

council lands (through an exchange of

easements) to gain road access to a major

residential and retail scheme at Charles-

land near Greystones in the early 2000s.

(see pages 10-11)

Dooley had assembled the mainly

landlocked private properties at Char-

lesland for the developers and was a

partner with Mulryan in the Florentine

development in Bray town centre before

they fell out over an outstanding €4m

debt which the auctioneer claims he is

owed by the developer.

Dooley’s questions also relate to the

manner in which the council acquired

lands under compulsory purchase (CPO)

orders to provide access to Charlesland

from the N11 motorway, the main route

from Dublin to the south-east, among

other issues.

He has asked the environment min-

ister, Alan Kelly, whether he is satisﬁed

with the manner in which the Grey-

stones Southern Access route (SAR)

and the Kilpedder Interchange on the

N11 were ﬁnanced and what monies the

developers contributed for the roads, a

roundabout at Charlesland and for other

services provided for the scheme.

Over the 14 years that Sheehy was at

the helm, the council was embroiled in

a succession of embarrassing episodes,

and legal actions, from the illegal dump-

ing of waste to planning and re-zoning

disputes involving some of the country’s

leading, and wealthiest, developers.

Sheehy featured in the national news-

papers a few years ago af ter they exposed

a holiday junket by current and former

council staﬀ to Florida in which he was

photographed with a ﬁstful of dollars.

He was at the losing end of a High Court

action taken by three councillors whom

he wrongly barred from the council

chamber after they lost a defamation

action against the county manager.

He also featured in another controver-

sial High Court outing when the council

sought to have companies involved in

widespread illegal dumping pay for the

remediation of polluted landﬁlls in west

Wicklow. The court action was suspended

in late 2011 after it heard evidence that

the council itself was involved in illegal

dumping of waste at the huge Whites-

town dump while one of its authorised

oﬃcers had sought to obtain the contract

to remediate the site and reap millions in

proﬁt from the clean-up.

Dooley’s bitter antagonism with Mul-

ryan centres on an arrangement which

the pair had to purchase and develop

the Florentine site in Bray town centre,

where Dooley has one of his auction-

eering oﬃces. Between 1996 and 2002

he assembled the properties of dozens

of landowners for Mulryan’s company,

the Ballymore Group on which they

planned to build a major retail centre.

They formed a consortium, Florentine

Properties Ltd. (FPL) with Ballymore and

Dooley each holding 50% shares and

negotiated a loan from Bank of Scotland

which took the title deeds from all of

Dooley’s commercial assets as security.

In June 2005, Ballymore acquired Doo-

ley’s shareholding for €5m with a down

payment of €1m and the balance to be

paid when the 100,000 sq. ft. shopping

centre and 85 apartments were com-

pleted, or on the sale of the site.

In 2007, Wicklow County Coun-

cil placed a CPO on the site which was

enforced in 2009. By this time, some

€2.75bn of distressed Ballymore loans

from a range of institutions including

Anglo Irish Bank, Irish Nationwide,

Allied Irish Banks and the Bank of

Ireland were in the National Assets Man-

agement Agency (NAMA). •

Seeks apology, damages and undertaking from

Wicklow Times

. By Frank Connolly

Sheehy claims defamation

Over the 14

years that

Sheehy was at

the helm, the

council was

embroiled in a

succession of

embarrassing

episodes

“

NEWS Wicklow

Gabriel Dooley

Eddie Sheehy