Businessman challenges Dartmouth park order

Businessman Noel O'Gara has brought a High Court challenge to an order preventing him using Dartmouth Square park in Ranelagh, Dublin for business purposes.

Mr O'Gara, the registered owner of the park, and his company Marble and Granite Tiles Ltd, want to overturn a Circuit Court order of March 30th last directing him to immediately cease using the park in south Dublin for the advertisement, sale or display of goods. The Circuit Court also directed that a caravan and generator be immediately removed from the park.

When the matter came before Mr Justice Michael Peart yesterday, the judge told Mr O'Gara that, as he had lodged an appeal against the Circuit Court order, the High Court would grant a stay on that order for one week provided Mr O'Gara undertook to notify Dublin City Council of his application and to serve the council with a copy of the High Court stay order.

The judge said the council was entitled to be heard on the issue of the stay.

In his challenge to the Circuit Court order, Mr O'Gara claims the council's ability to take his land by compulsory purchase order and to offer him a pittance in compensation amounts to "legally condoned theft for which anybody else would be jailed".

He claims he was offered €100,000 for the two acres of prime development land which was just 200 yards from the Burlington Hotel site which was recently sold for some €288 million. The "level of distortion" of the marketplace could be gauged by the inflated value put on the Burlington Hotel, he claims.

He also claims that residents of Dartmouth Square were selling their green space back gardens for amounts close to €1 million while at the same time putting pressure on the council "to steal my lands for their benefit, citing that they need green space".

Dartmouth Square was the correct place for apartment developments, he also claimed.

In earlier proceedings, the High Court last October granted a permanent injunction restraining Mr O'Gara and the company from using the park as a public car park.

The court directed that no more than two vehicles could be parked at any one time in the park. Both vehicles must be the property of either Mr O'Gara, of Ballinahowen Court, Athlone, Co Westmeath, a director of the company, or of the company itself.

Mr O'Gara had argued that the planning regulations were unconstitutional, and that he had "a right to invite his friends on to his land with their cars for social occasions".

However, when granting the order, Mr Justice Michael Hanna said he was satisfied that the use of the park as a car park was a material change of use requiring planning permission.