On Monday, we covered a recent application by part of the Banty Brood for an exemption for an asylum accommodation centre on Leeson Street which has been used as an IPAS centre for almost three years, since the beginning of 2023, without any such a planning exemption being sought or granted as far as Dublin City Council planning records show.
Now, a reader has provided evidence that the largest of all of the McEnaney companies, Brimwood, would appear to have had the same arrangement in Ardee, County Louth.
Brimwood is entirely owned through Chillpal by Seamus ‘Banty’ McEnaney and his immediate family. To date, Brimwood has earned well over €150 million in tax payment for the provision of accommodation.
Brimwood was granted a Section 5 exemption by Louth County Council on November 22, 2024 for the change over of use of the Setanta Guesthouse at 7 Castle Street, Ardee, “to provide accommodation for persons seeking international protection.”
The building is also home to the Ardee branch of Allied Irish Banks but there are no available property records which show who owns the building. However, on the application submitted on October 30, 2024 by Hughes Planners, Brimwood is described as the owner.
The thing is though – as with the premises at 48/49 Leeson Street Lower – that the Setanta Guesthouse has been mentioned as providing such accommodation since October 2019. On October 21, 2019, the Movement for Asylum Seekers in Ireland (MASI) referred to Setanta House in a press release.
On February 17, 2021, the then Minister with responsibility for IPAS, Roderick O’Gorman, named Setanta as one of “three properties being utilised by the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) of my Department in Co. Louth. These are Carroll Village in Dundalk, Setanta Bed & Breakfast in Ardee and the Carnbeg Hotel in Dundalk.” In his reply, O’Gorman referred to Setanta as “emergency accommodation.”
Yet, there had been no applications or granting of planning exemptions by the Council for such use by Brimwood for the Setanta Guesthouse until November last year, at least five years since the building began to be used to house applicants for International Protection. How can this be?
Well, some local people were similarly curious and submitted Freedom of Information requests. I have seen the response to one that was submitted to Louth County Council in July. The applicant requested “records relating to Setanta House, Ardee, Co. Louth, for the period 1 January 2022 to the present” as well as the “current occupancy status of Setanta House.”
Specifically, the FOI request sought information as to whether Setanta House was “presently accommodating: Persons seeking international protection, Persons granted temporary protection, or Any other non-national groups under State-funded schemes.”
She also asked for “Planning or zoning-related records from the Department’s perspective, including any references to exemptions, Section 5 notifications, or concerns related to compliance”.
On July 16, the Council agreed to “part grant” the request. The part which asked for the occupancy status was refused on the basis that “The record does not exist.” In response to the request for records, the applicant was referred to the November 1, 2024, application. Which simply confirms that the application was only made and granted years after it began to be used for its current purpose.
Which some might regard as a Kafkaesque response given that the building has been used to accommodate asylum seekers since 2019 at least. Five years before any application was made to Louth County Council. The 2024 application document refers to current use as a guesthouse. It also refers to the bank on the ground floor which has been there since 1993.
In 2005 the then owners of the building were granted permission for a four-storey extension to the rear of the 3 storey building to provide another 9 bedrooms. There is no reference in any of the registered applications to change of use to offices but there are a number of businesses currently registered with the Companies Registration Office (CRO) with an address at 7 Castle Street, Ardee. Some of them appear to be connected to the former owners of the Setanta guesthouse.
There were no other planning applications in the period between 1993 and 2024 and none that related to the provision of accommodation of asylum seekers. Even prior to the emergency statutory instruments in 2022 and 2023, any change of use to asylum accommodation would have required a Section 5 exemption under the 2000 Planning and Development Act, there is no record of any reference to such for the Setanta Guesthouse.
Three of the companies have been registered since the building began to be used as an IPAS accommodation centre. They are Angel Gabriel Logistics, established in 2021 and owned by Eric Ngwenya. Bestano-Touch Healthcare Services which is involved in “social work” was registered in 2022 and is owned by Nigerian national Stanley Oligbi. Another company Division Development Global, which describes itself as involved in the wholesaling of coffee, tea, cocoa and spices, was registered in December 2024, and is owned by Moses Smith.
Smith’s Linkedin page describes himself as an employee of ICTS and as having worked for them as a security guard and that he specialises in cybersecurity. ICTS Ireland describes itself as being involved in the business of “Public security, law and order activities.”
What we know for certain is that the Setanta guesthouse has been used as an asylum accommodation centre for close to seven years at least, six of them before any application or exemption for that purpose was registered with Louth County Council.
It would also appear that a number of businesses have been registered at that address over the period it has been used as IPAS accommodation. There is also no record of any planning applications or permissions for office use so perhaps it is the case that the owners of the companies are actually residents of 7 Castle Street.
I contacted Brimwood through their registered CRO email to inquire – given that “an application for an exemption was only registered with Louth County Council last November which was allowed …under what criteria Setanta operated prior to that?” given that it has been used as asylum accommodation since 2019.
I also pointed out “that there are several businesses which provide Setanta House as their address,” and if “the owners and directors of these companies are residents in the asylum accommodation?”
I received an acknowledgement of receipt of the email but no response to the questions posed prior to publication.