Archdiocese of Dublin receives almost €3m from GAA deal

The Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin received almost €3 million last year from the GAA following a deal the association concluded with US commercial property group Hines in 2019. The 19-acre site at Clonliffe was part of a larger plot sold by the archdiocese to the GAA for €95 million.

The GAA is believed to have received €105 million for the lands it sold to Hines. According to the Dublin Catholic Archdiocese’s financial report for 2020, it received €2,918,000 due to a clause in its contract with the GAA that it would receive “a share in the profits made by the GAA if they sold on any of the lands or buildings to a third party”.

The GAA, it said, had “sold on a significant portion of the lands they purchased from the charity [Dublin’s Catholic Archdiocese], which resulted in the charity receiving a share in the profits made by the GAA arising from this clause”.

The archdiocese’s financial report for 2020 also revealed that the second tranche in its deal with the GAA closed in October of last year, transferring 6.51 acres at Clonliffe to the association for which the archdiocese received €31,248,000.

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Its deal with the GAA is that the sale of the lands at Clonliffe takes place over four years, with the final two tranches to take place over the next two years and “the final of the four tranches concluding in October 2022”.

Proceeds from the sale “are designated by the trustees in line with approval from the Holy See and are not available for day-to-day operating expenditure”, the report pointed out.

At Clonliffe, the archdiocese has retained ownership of Archbishop's House and the former Mater Dei college building. The latter is leased to Dublin City Council at a nominal rent and is being used as a hub for 50 homeless families which is managed by Crosscare, an agency of the archdiocese.

Church closures

More generally the financial report said the impact of church closures from March 2020 due to the pandemic had been “severe”, with collections “reduced by almost 80 per cent in a three-month period” to June 2020.

The share collection (second collection on Sundays), which “has been in decline since 2009”, it said, “decreased by 60 per cent in 2020”. From the beginning of the pandemic in mid-March 2020 to the end of last year, that decrease had been 74 per cent compared with the same period in 2019.

To address this, a voluntary redundancy scheme was introduced which was availed of by 40 staff by the end of 2020.

Priests’ income was reduced by 25 per cent as the first collection on Sundays, for the support of priests, was also down. It dropped by 54 per cent for the year, and by 65 per cent from the beginning of the pandemic when compared with the same period for 2019.

The report noted that “this sharp decline” in collections “was as a direct result of the pandemic and the restrictions put in place to try to prevent the spread of the virus. In 2021 the collections have continued at a decreased level as these restrictions have continued.”