Business park blunder

Business park blunder

Áine Ryan

DESPITE claims to the contrary, Ballina’s IDA business park is not ready to proceed – because the lands concerned are still registered in the name of a dead man.
The Mayo News can reveal that a decade after the controversial site for the park was first mooted, the lands on the Sligo Road still remain in the name of deceased farmer, Mr Edward Molloy.
However, while Mayo County Council concedes that Mr Molloy – who died intestate in 1983 – is the registered owner of the 27-acre farm at Quignashee, it says it bought the lands from his late wife, Brigid Molloy, in 2001, and that registration hasn’t been altered yet because the legal process is ongoing.
In a shock revelation, one of the couple’s sons, Mr Eamonn Molloy has told The Mayo News that ‘the case is far from settled’. Mr Molloy says Mayo County Council ‘acquired the farm in 2000’, but claims that his signature is required in order for the sale to be completed.
“I still believe the Council can’t legally go in there until I sign on the dotted line,” said Mr Molloy. The Council, on the other hand, claims it understands that the dispute has been settled and it is effectively awaiting solicitors for both parties to sign off.
“I understand an agreement was reached [at the January court] on the terms of the settlement and now it has to be signed off,” said County Secretary, Mr John Condon. This agreement refers to one aspect of the complicated row involving a right-of-way on the lands, being used by Eamonn Molloy and his neighbours.
Acting Director of Services for the Ballina area, Mr Noel Burke, also said ‘as far as the Council is concerned the matter is settled’.
“The position is that all the legal aspects haven’t been resolved and the registration [into the Council’s name] will not happen until then.” Neither official would comment any further.
Last January this newspaper reported that ‘after a ten-year deadlock’ the much-publicised business park ‘may finally become a reality’, after solicitors for the Council and Mr Molloy reached a settlement over the disputed right-of-way on the steps of the Castlebar Circuit Court.
However, while a settlement was reached, Mr Molloy contends that its terms have not yet been fully met. Mr Molloy’s present solicitor, Mr Alan Gannon, declined to respond to a number of written questions sent to him by The Mayo News.
“I would be a breach of solicitor-client confidentiality to discuss any matters you have put in your email herein,” replied Mr Gannon. This was despite the fact that Mr Molloy had given The Mayo News permission to ask the questions.
There was no response from Mr Molloy’s former solicitor, Mr Adrian Bourke, to a series of other questions.
The chequered history of Ballina’s business park has dominated both the economic and political profile of the north Mayo capital for almost a decade. Last January, Deputy Dara Calleary told The Mayo News that if the controversial project was not resolved imminently, it should be abandoned. He also accused the IDA of ‘hiding behind the issue’ rather than acting proactively towards its resolution.  
Three months earlier former Independent TD, Dr Jerry Cowley, highlighted Ballina’s dismal unemployment statistics in the Dáil. He said: “The issue of the 27-acre industrial park on the Sligo Road is ongoing for almost a decade. It is a total fiasco and an indictment of the failure of the local authority, in association with the IDA and Enterprise Ireland, to address the very serious unemployment that exists.”
A month earlier he observed that ‘Ballina has lost 1340 jobs in the past nine years and with only 400 replacement jobs provided, [that’s] a net loss of nearly 1,000 jobs. Ballina’s eleven per cent unemployment level was twice the national average and greater than the entire rate in County Roscommon,’ he said.
Fine Gael’s Cllr Michelle Mulherin has also been a staunch critic, arguing that in the interim, ‘Government has presided over job losses of 1500 in the area.’
Meanwhile, a privately owned adjacent site – Quay West Retail Park – is currently seeking expressions of interest.