Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Co Council's purchase of a 7.5-acre development site at Enniskerry Road in Sandyford, Co Dublin, is expected to cause some anxiety among adjoining landowners. Finnegan Menton is believed to have secured the equivalent of around £1 million an acre for the land which has been used up to now as a pitch and putt course.

A number of builders tendered for the site which has 650 feet of frontage on to the Enniskerry Road. The new owners may use the land for social housing. One of the attractions of the site is that it is within half-a-mile of the Southern Cross Motorway, the final section of the M50 ring-road, due to be completed by 2003.