O'Connell Street locked in legal wrangles

Completion of the O'Connell Street regeneration project has been delayed to "an extraordinary degree" by the ongoing legal proceedings over the former Carlton cinema site, Dublin city manager John Fitzgerald has said.

The disused cinema and an adjacent derelict lot have been described by Mr Fitzgerald as "the most important site in the entire city", yet it remains undeveloped because of legal wrangling between the owners and the council, and involving the owners themselves.

The council made a compulsory purchase order of the site in December 2001, after determining that the Carlton Group of landowners, who had secured planning for the site in 1999, had neither the finance nor expertise to advance the project.

A challenge to the CPO brought by Paul Clinton, an architect and member of the Carlton Group, was heard in the High Court in March 2004. The president, Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan, decided in favour of the council last March. However, Mr Clinton has now appealed the case to the Supreme Court and a date for the hearings has yet to be set.

There is also an ongoing High Court action between Mr Clinton and another owner of the site, and former member of the Carlton Group, amusement arcade owner Richard Quirke.

Mr Quirke, who owns Dr Quirkey's Goodtime Emporium, an arcade next door to the cinema and owns or part owns a number of properties on the Carlton site, principally on the derelict site, was originally involved in the challenge to the council's CPO, but later withdrew.

There were lands on the CPO site held by Mr Clinton alone, others owned jointly by Mr Clinton and Mr Quirke, and others by companies in which Mr Clinton held interests.

Mr Clinton sued companies owned or part owned by Mr Quirke. Mr Clinton has alleged he was in partnership with Mr Quirke but Mr Quirke, in other proceedings, denied that claim and challenged claims by Mr Clinton to title regarding a number of properties.

The council has decided to press ahead with the redevelopment of the north end of O'Connell Street and the regeneration of Parnell Square. However, the Carlton site will remain untouched until the outcome of the court actions.

"It is disappointing that the most critical site in town has become mired in litigation to the extent that the legal process has sterilised what is a critical project," Mr Fitzgerald said.

Although the legal process has crippled the development of O'Connell Street, it has come late in the day in the saga of the Carlton site. The site has been vacant since 1979 and the cinema closed since 1994. It had a brief life as a bag shop before being earmarked for a national conference centre and then the new site for the Abbey Theatre.

The impasse has an impact beyond its frontage on to O'Connell Street. The council's plans included a pedestrian walkway from the Carlton site back to Moore Street and envisaged hotels, street bar cafés and restaurants.