Laois TD asks: What are you going to do with €1 million site in Portlaoise?

A Laois TD wants to know what the State plans to do with land that cost taxpayers €1 million earmarked for Civil Service offices while it is spending thousands of euro renting property for these same workers.

Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Sinn Féin’s Brian Stanley TD, has called for the committee to further examine findings of an internal Office of Public Works (OPW) report revealing that hundreds of millions of euros could be saved by the State through either building or buying office units rather than renting.

The TD pointed to one such site in Portlaoise where several offices are being rented chiefly for the Department of Agriculture staff nearly 20 years after the problematic Charlie McCreevy inspired Decentralisation policy.

The Minister for Agriculture and Food Mary Coughlan approved a plan in 2005 for land to be purchased from the the IDA just off the Mountrath Road in Portlaoise to build a centralised office in the town.

This ultimately cost  €1 million but no offices were built. And staff operate out of six locations in the Laois town with many rented.

Deputy Stanley is looking for answers and wants action.

“Publicly owned land is available in Laois / Offaly to build office accommodation on. One OPW owned site in Portlaoise has been lying vacant for over a decade, despite the fact that it was purchased at the cost of €1 m to decentralise Government Departments.

"The OPW are due to appear before the Public Accounts Committee on the 15th of December and we will be seeking additional information in advance of that session,”  he said.

The following figures were previously published by Dep Stanley for the cost of rents.

• Eircom Buildings (2 leases) €214,382
• Clonminam Industrial Estate (Warehouse) €98,133
• Kylekiproe Ind Est (Warehouse) €107,919
• Kilminchy Court  €84,051
• Grattan Business Centre  €264,640
• Grattan House (2 leases) €74,150
• James Fintan Lalor Avenue  €50,000
• James Fintan Lalor House  €26,514

Deputy Stanley’s comments follow the publication of an internal report by the OPW which revealed that it was almost 40% more expensive to rent compared to purchasing property and concludes that renting offices is not achieving value for money.

 “The findings of the OPW’s report are alarming in the context of the State achieving value for money. As Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, I will be recommending that the committee examine this matter further.

 "The internal review looked at a sample of just five buildings which the OPW is currently renting and concluded that there would be total savings of €216m for the State if we built or bought those buildings.

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"Of course, there is a major upfront cost to the State with regards to either purchasing or building these office units. However, what we need to see is an incremental movement towards ownership and away from leasing.

"Currently, 39% of the State’s property portfolio is rented or leased, we need to reduce that total figure," he said.

 The TD said long-term leasing does not make financial sense, the OPW’s examination found that it can cost up to 40% more to rent long-term compared with building or buying office space.

He said the OPW states that over a life-time lease of one property highlighted the OPW projects spending €102 million to rent the building, when it could be purchased for just €63m – a 38% saving.

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The Sinn Féin representative said wants OPW to consider trend towards people working-from-home and also civil servants opting to move to areas outside of Dublin.

He said these trends should offer the OPW opportunities to build or purchase more affordable office space outside of Dublin. We should be looking to decentralise more of our office space.