The Department of Defence is to go to High Court in the New Year to stop a Corkman from blocking the sale of one of the country's biggest military barracks.
A €40 million deal has been struck between the Department and the Cork-based building firm, O'Flynn Construction for Murphy Barracks in Ballincollig, outside Cork city. However, a Ballincollig solicitor, Mr Donal Brendan O'Connell, has claimed that he holds the freehold to the property and that the State has no right to sell it without his agreement. Last night, his solicitor, Mr Colm Murphy, from Kenmare, Co Kerry, said that the Department pays €3,000 a year in ground rent to Mr O'Connell.
Mr Murphy said he had written to the Department to declare that the land cannot be sold unless the 600-year-old freehold held by Mr O'Connell's Ballincollig Holdings Ltd is bought out. If successful, the legal challenge would have "colossal ramifications" for the Department's effort to use land sales to pay for the re-equipping of the Defence Forces, claimed Mr Murphy.
O'Flynn Construction has a 10-year €300 million plan to build offices, a town centre, a shopping centre and 800 houses on the land, a spokesman for the company said yesterday.
According to a number of sources, the State will seek a declaratory order from the High Court next month to declare that Mr O'Connell has no right to block the sale.