Irish Life is continuing to make substantial investments in the commercial property market. The fund has agreed to pay around £14 million for a new office investment at East Point Business Park, in the Dublin docklands, and is also taking a one-third stake in St Stephen's Green House, at Earlsfort Terrace, which has just been sold for an overall price of £23 million.

Irish Life and two other institutions will have to settle for an initial yield of 4.5 per cent on St Stephen's Green House, an eight-storey over basement office block next door to the Conrad Hotel. The 67,000 sq ft block is currently producing a rent roll of £984,000 but, according to Jones Lang Wootton, the next rent reviews should produce substantial increases given that rents in the area are now around £35 per sq ft. There are 108 car-parking spaces in the basement.

Four of the floors in the block are occupied by the Office of Public Works under 10-year leases from 1995 and 1996, accounting for rents of £347,000 per annum. The Legal Aid Board also occupies a full floor of 8,900 sq ft at a rent of £108,000 per annum. The other tenants are Greencore Group plc, QBE Insurance and Esat Digifone. The building has been extensively refurbished by Sisk Properties since it bought it about eight years ago.

Irish Life's other investment, a 50,000 sq ft building at East Point, will produce a yield of just over 5 per cent. It is occupied by the US-based NTL Communications which bought Cablelink last year for £535 million. NTL is paying a rent of around £16 per sq ft for the building and has a break option in the 14th year. NTL is also occupying half the space in an adjoining building of 50,000 sq ft, which has been sold for £14 million to the Bank of Ireland Pension Fund.