COILLTE HAS agreed a multi-million euro deal with Lord Waterford to end a long-running legal battle between them over the preservation of historic demesne walls around the 2,000-acre family estate.
In March 2007, Lord Waterford demanded before the High Court that because of an alleged failure to maintain the property Coillte should return 1,000 acres rented to the State for forestry in the 1930s on a 150-year lease by his father.
Under the deal, agreed this summer, Collite has returned 500 acres, including 100 acres immediately around Portlaw adjacent to the Curraghmore estate, and bought 400 acres for €3.7million.
Coillte will continue to own the trees growing on the lands released back to Lord Waterford, and will be able to realise their value when they are harvested in stages up to 2035.
The Curraghmore estate, the home of the de Poer Beresford family since the late 1100s, is one of the country's largest Ascendancy homes, and much of it today is marked as a special area of conservation.
The lands were leased for 150 years for a peppercorn rent in November 1933 between Lord Waterfords father, John Charles de la Poer, the seventh marquis of Waterford, and the minister for agriculture.
Under the Forestry Act, 1988, the benefit of the lease was vested in Coillte from January 1st, 1989, and under it Coillte was required to maintain and repair all walls, ditches, drains, roads and pathways on the estate.
From 1989, Lord Waterford complained that he faced continuing difficulties in trying to get Coillte to comply with its obligations, while promises to carry out repairs were made but not honoured.
A report by consulting engineers in 2004 concluded that the estate's external and internal walls had been badly damaged, and that it would cost €10.5million to repair them, and also repair the estate's roads.
In an interview with The Irish Times in March 2006, Lord Waterford said: "They have allowed trees to grow right up alongside walls.
"I started to complain to them about this during the 1970s, but nothing got done.
"The leases were very badly drawn up. The rental is absolutely minimal, just 14 pence in old money per acre. Nobody thought about inflation.
''There were no rent reviews, though we were not unique in that."
In a statement in recent days to The Irish Times, solicitors for Lord Waterford James Reilly and Sons confirmed that the legal action between Curraghmore Estates and Coillte has been "resolved on terms which are acceptable to both parties. While we cannot go into detail in relation to the terms for settlement for confidentiality reasons, we can confirm that the settlement involved Coillte surrendering certain lands to Curraghmore Estates and purchasing other lands from Curraghmore at an agreed valuation.
''All claims and counter-claims between the parties have been struck out and the matter is therefore now at end," the solicitor's statement said.
Coillte company secretary Gerry Egan said an agreement had been reached, and that lands had been returned.
"There were certain lands that he was anxious to have back for a combination of family and historic reasons, and for commercial reasons."
