HousingLand: Housebuilding firm Dwyer Nolan will build starter homes on land bought from brothers Michael and Tom Bailey. Jack Fagan reports

Bovale Developments, the company controlled by brothers Michael and Tom Bailey, has sold 44 acres of housing land at Poppintree, Ballymun, Dublin 11, for a figure believed to be close to €60 million.

Dwyer Nolan, one of the longest established housebuilding firms in Dublin, was the purchaser of the land, which will be used primarily for starter homes.

There is already planning permission for 1,060 new homes on the site off Jamestown Road, about 60 per cent of them apartments and the balance a mixture of two, three and four-bedroom houses.

The land adjoins Poppintree Industrial Estate and has been owned for many years by the Baileys, who figured at the Flood Tribunal into land rezoning.

The brothers also own an adjoining 20 acres which are currently the subject of a planning application for 435 houses.

Several other starter home developments in the same area have sold exceptionally well over the past few years because of the relatively low prices and the close proximity to Finglas village.

The Poppintree site is the second tranche of development land to be sold by Bovale in recent years.

At the end of 2000, it also disposed of 152 acres at Balgriffin in north Dublin to Shannon Homes for €57 million.

Neither of the Bailey brothers was available to comment yesterday on the Poppintree sale and Mr Dwyer was reported to be at his holiday home in Greece.

Bovale controls a substantial land bank in both Dublin and Meath and builds up to 300 new homes a year.

It has already completed and sold about 1,000 houses at its present site, Boroimhe, near Swords.

Mr Dwyer has been one of the main players in the Dublin housing market over the past three decades. He was at the centre of the single biggest property transaction in 2003 when he sold the 62-acre former Bray Golf Club and the adjoining Industrial Yarns site to a consortium for almost €90 million.

Mr Dwyer is reputed to have made a substantial fortune on the sale after spending five years assembling the site, arranging rezoning and building an alternative 18-hole golf course for the golf club.

The old grounds are now regarded as one of the most spectacular town centre development sites on the east coast. It is to be used for a comprehensive scheme that is likely to include up to 46,450 sq m (500,000 sq ft) of shopping facilities, the same volume of other commercial space including a leisure complex, multiplex cinema and 1,500 homes.

Dwyer Nolan's high profile developments in recent years have included Roebuck Castle, Stillorgan Park, The Maples in Clonskeagh and Johnstown in Co Kildare.