TD’s flats could net €100 a night
subdivided house after he was issued with an enforcement warning letter by Kerry County Council.
Prior to completion of the Kilgarvan development, An Bord Pleanála had moved to block a similar four-apartment scheme Mr Healy-Rae had sought permission to build in Tralee.
The Kilgarvan house, known locally as ‘Jack Cahill’s house’, is opposite Mr HealyRae’s post office, shop and petrol station.
The unauthorised Kilgarvan apartments were not specifically declared by Mr Healy-Rae in his Oireachtas declaration of interest last year, which referred simply to a ‘private house’ in Kilgarvan.
Kerry County Council planning files confirm Mr Healy-Rae bought the house in 2018 and submitted a planning application the following year to ‘alter and extend’ the property into a five-bedroom home.
The council granted planning permission in January 2020, subject to conditions. These specified the building must be constructed entirely in accordance with the drawings submitted.
Instead, the Kerry TD built four separate apartments on the site in 2020, during the pandemic. Each apartment has its own entrance, kitchen, bathroom, living room and parking space – none of which was given planning permission.
Mr Healy-Rae funded the unauthorised development with a mortgage from Allied Irish Bank, which was secured against the
‘People are making a living objecting’
property a month after planning was received.
Based on property values in the area, it is likely the politician paid in the region of €65,000 for the property before investing in the redevelopment.
He now stands to profit after developing the house into apartments, with the housing crisis creating unprecedented demand for accommodation. One-bedroom apartments in the area, close to popular tourist destinations Kenmare and Killarney, can command between €80 to €100 a night on Airbnb. Similar units are being let on a long-term basis for between €500 to €600 a month.
Kerry County Council confirmed it initiated enforcement action and issued the TD with a warning letter in December 2020 on foot of a complaint.
A council statement said: ‘The unauthorised works referred to in the warning letter included altering, extending and subdividing a house.’
Under planning laws, councils have extensive powers to enforce unauthorised developments up to, and including, demolition. They can also prosecute those in breach of planning rules.
As Mr Healy-Rae was building his Kilgarvan apartments, the council was prosecuting him for the alleged unauthorised erection of a billboard across the road. The action was ultimately unsuccessful because the court ruled the seven-year statutory period for planning cases had expired by the time the case was taken.
Recently, the council has also initiated enforcement action against Mr Healy-Rae relating to an advertising structure on the gable of a former pub in Tralee. The Kerry TD removed the structure when served with an enforcement notice.
But there would be no enforcement notice relating to the unauthorised apartments in Kilgarvan. Instead, Mr Healy-Rae submitted a retention application at the end of March this year which was approved weeks later, ending the council’s enforcement of the matter.
A council spokesman told the MoS: ‘In cases where a grant of permission results, it is the policy of the Planning Authority not to pursue further enforcement actions as such would be almost certainly unsuccessful.’
The spokesman added that enforcement would have been futile because the apartment ‘development did not result in any environmental or other material damage to a protected structure or protected monument’.
Nevertheless, when asked for the council’s view on unauthorised
development, the spokesman said: ‘Kerry County Council believes that a strong culture of enforcement is critical to ensure
thatall goals and objectives of the planning function work to a high standard and for the benefit of the whole community.’
Over his career, Mr Healy-Rae has repeatedly criticised the planning system, particularly the manner in which objections are dealt
with. Last year he called on Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien to overhaul the complaints system.
‘People are making a living
out of objecting to people’s planning applications throughout the entire country and it is disgraceful,’ he told the Dáil. Mr Healy-Rae said he
respected people’s ‘entitlement to object’, but said he favours restricting objections, especially in the case of single dwellings, to those directly affected by the planning application.
‘If you do not live within, or own land within, a 5km radius of a proposed development, you should not be entitled to object. Why would it bother someone living in Kenmare, what someone in Listowel is doing?’ he said at the time.
Mr Healy-Rae is the Dáil’s biggest landlord, with 16 properties listed for rent, according to the latest register of members’ interests.
He also holds a directorship with Michael Healy-Rae Properties Ltd, the purposes of which are said to be ‘maintenance and repairs of
properties’. His occupations are recorded in the register as postmaster, politician, farmer, service station owner and plant hire company owner.
The Kerry TD has also disclosed shares in the New York Times newspaper. Members of the Oireachtas are obliged to declare share values over a €13,000 threshold.
When contacted by the MoS this week, Mr Healy-Rae refused to discuss the case, saying it was all to do with a person who has ‘a gripe’ against him before hanging up.
He subsequently declined to respond to repeated calls, emails, texts and WhatsApp messages inviting him to comment.