Mayor furious over Council plan to sell Royal Tara

The sale of the leasehold in the Royal Tara site in Mervue is back on the agenda.
A proposal will come before Galway City Councillors next Monday night to sell four leases to a private developer with plans to build apartments on the site.
The Council owns the property but leased it out to Royal Tara China Limited under four separate leases varying in time from 200 to 500 year.
In the past few months, the leases have been sold by that company to Welroyal Property Limited, which is owned by McHale Engineering in Ballinrobe.
It is understood the leases were exchanged for around €1.2 million. City Councillors will be asked on Monday to sell the leases to Welroyal Property Ltd, and it is understood this will be supported by Chief Executive Brendan McGrath.
Mayor of Galway, Frank Fahy, says he will oppose the sale of the leases and he will propose instead that the City Council buys back the leases from the new leaseholders.
He said the Council is legally obliged to sell two of the leases but it isn’t obliged to sell all four. “Two leases are no good to anyone. You need all four if you are to do anything. I will be proposing that we buy back the leases, not sell them,” said Mayor Fahy.
The Fine Gael Councillor has a proposal to buy the leases back from the developers and to use the site to build Council apartments that would be earmarked for the elderly.
“I’d like to see one and two bed apartments for older people. I think it would be mad to sell these leases – it’s buying them back we should be doing, not selling them,” he said.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.