Accountant Derek Quinlan and property developer David Arnold have emerged as the pair who paid over £25 million for a site of 11.8 acres at Galloping Green in Stillorgan, Co Dublin. They beat some of the biggest developers in town for the land, which is undoubtedly the best to have come on the market in the last few years. With both entrepreneurs more interested in commercial developments than in housebuilding - they have a leg of the huge Central Park office scheme in Leopardstown - it will be interesting to see what use they will find for the Stillorgan land, given that it is primarily zoned for residential use. When the site first went for sale, the early viewers included hoteliers and the promoters of a private hospital and medical clinic - one of the fastest growing businesses around, with the rich demanding instant attention, as the queues in the public hospitals grow long.

If either of these groups is still looking for a site, then surely this would be a nice way of getting around the zoning. In the meantime, the new owners are awaiting the outcome of an appeal to An Bord Pleanala against the granting of planning permission for almost 45,000 sq ft of offices, 19 houses and 168 apartments.