Priory Hall costs Dublin City Council €4m to date

The evacuation of Priory Hall has cost Dublin City Council almost €4 million, not including the money to be spent on the refurbishment of the north Dublin apartment complex.

The former residents of Priory Hall last October accepted a deal which allowed them to walk away from the unsafe apartments from which they were evacuated two years previously.

As part of the deal, the city council agreed to take over the complex and refurbish it at a cost of €10 million over the next two years. A spokesman for the council said work has started on surveys of the site, but it was not yet in a position to go to tender for the construction work.

Framework agreement
"The implementation of the framework agreement between the individual owners and their banks is still being worked out under the chairmanship of Dr Martin McAleese," a spokesman for the council said. "Until that is resolved, we are not in a position to proceed to tender."

The council has undertaken to continue paying the accommodation costs of the residents until next month and will be reviewing the situation within the next two weeks, the spokesman said.

Accommodation costs
Up to last month, the council had paid out more than €1.5 million in accommodation costs, more than €1 million of which was for apartment leasing and just under €400,000 in hotel bills. The largest single cost was in security for the vacant complex, which has risen to €1.54 million and continues to be provided. Engineering and survey costs have reached almost €500,000 and legal fees of more than €92,000 have been incurred.

Staff costs are at more than €10,000 and “miscellaneous” costs are close to €162,000.

The spokesman said that some €1.9 million had been recouped by the council from the Department of the Environment, but the remaining costs had been absorbed by the local authority.