WESTLIFE SINGER Shane Filan and his brother Finbar are to develop a €5 million nursing home at Knappagh Road on the edge of Sligo town.
The project has been given the go-ahead by An Bord Pleanála with 14 conditions attached to meet objections from neighbouring residents’ associations.
The home is set to be completed by June next year.
The state-of-the-art building is one of a multimillion euro set of development projects the singer is set to start in his Sligo home area, which he says could create up to 300 jobs for local people.
The brothers are also set to start work on a new 50-bed nursing home in Dromahair, Co Leitrim, and on a new residential and retail complex near Shane’s luxury home at Carraroe, outside Sligo town.
The brothers, who run construction company Shafin, say they are preparing for an end to the recession and to meet a growing demand from an ageing population for more nursing homes.
Shafin, like others in the construction industry, was left with a number of unsold properties from an earlier development in Dromahair.
But the singer said “positive things” were beginning to happen. “We’ve sold over a dozen houses in Dromahair in recent months. That proves the banks are beginning to loosen the purse strings and people are becoming a bit more positive.
“We firmly believe that it needs to be local people who get Sligo moving again,” he said.