Former Kildare councillor takes council to High Court
Former independent councillor from Newbridge Fiona McLoughlin Healy, who is taking an action in the High Court against Kildare County Council.
A FORMER Newbridge councillor will appear in the High Court in October to sue the state, the minister for housing, the attorney general, and Kildare County Council over the sale of publicly-owned lands in recent years.
In the summons, which was originally submitted on 10 May, the former Independent councillor Fiona McLoughlin Healy – who stood down from Kildare County Council before last June’s Local Elections - alleged "the sale price for the said lands could be interpreted as not being the best reasonable price obtainable".
The legal case arose at a recent council meeting (29 July).
Under ‘statutory business’, the council's executive sought “to request for the express authorisation of the elected members for the chief executive to act for, and on behalf of Kildare County Council under Section 153(2) of the Local Government Act, 2001 in the case of Fiona McLoughlin Healy v Kildare County Council and others”.
For background, Fiona McLoughlin Healy first raised this issue at a full council meeting on 30 November, 2020, after the majority of her colleagues voted 23-4 to accept a recommendation to sell 0.32Ha (0.8ac) of its land to a developer for €100,000.
This was to allow for the development of 18 social houses and 109 private units on a land-locked site in Athgarvan – and the piece of land became known as a ‘ransom strip’ – where an unscrupulous council could hold such a developer to ‘ransom’.
Such a practice is also contrary to the county development plan, because if the council did exercise its power to ransom, this would just then be passed on to the consumer.
Doing this would now allow entry to lands which were zoned for housing three years ago, but had no point of access from public roads.
However, Mas McLoughlin Healy called for the sale to be postponed because she felt the strip of land was “undervalued”, and sought another surveyor’s valuation.
She pointed out that the planning for two private developments at this location – of 14 houses, and 95 houses – was contingent on this sale, and that the council had a duty to maximize value when making a sale that would open up “a €20-30m development”.
She was supported by Cllr Suzanne Doyle who suggested “it might be prudent to have more than one valuation”, but that she was “happy to go forward on this today, and not try to inflate prices in a housing crisis”.
Two other councillors from her Kildare-Newbridge Municipal District – cllrs Chris Pender, and Noel Heavey – both also supported the idea of a further valuation.
However, Cllr Kevin Duffy noted that the land-locked parcel had been re-zoned in 2017, and had been given Part VIII permission in 2018.
Kildare County Council has used two valuers – Reillys from Prosperous, and O’Reilly’s from Naas – to advise it on land valuations in situations like this.
However, Ms McLoughlin-Healy felt this was not sufficient.
A former colleague of hers pointed out that this advice must then be agreed by the 40-strong elected members, but that “we were never asked to vote on the advisors”.
She is also taking an action against the state, the minister for housing, and the attorney general.
She believes the standing orders of the council are unconstitutional because the protocols of dictate that a councillor can’t raise an issue “unless it’s a council function”.
She alleges this device was often used to stop her raising issues around ‘ransom strips’ at subsequent meetings.
“She might very well be right on some particular angle,” offered a former colleague.
