Dublin City University has had to pay through the nose for 10 acres of development land close to its Glasnevin campus in north Dublin. The college originally bid around £26 million for the site on Griffith Avenue only to discover that it was a long way behind the amazingly high figure of £31 million tendered by Charlie Kenny's Clancourt Group. No one was more surprised by the record price than the vendors, the Eustace family, who had been farming it since 1852, and who had been hoping the land would hit around the £20 million mark. Now, more than five months after the deal was clinched, ownership of the site has quietly passed to DCU for around the same money agreed by Clancourt.