Who are the companies who regard Ballsbridge and other asylum centres as prime investments? 

One of the interesting aspects of the plan to use the former St. Mary’s nursing home at Pembroke Park, Ballsbridge, as a direct provision centre is what its previous owners were planning to do with the place.

An examination of records conducted by this reporter reveals that it had been owned by a company called Richmond Homes who had secured planning permission from Dublin City Council to turn the site into a 64 room build-to-rent scheme. 

Richmond, which is part of the Avestus Capital group which specialises in build-to-rent here and in other countries, bought the site for more than €6 million and sold it for a reported €7 million last September. 

That is a good indication that, whatever about the attractiveness of build-to-rents in a high demand/high rental city like Dublin, there is currently another even more lucrative sector –  namely providing accommodation for the huge numbers coming here claiming asylum. 

Contracts to provide accommodation, and to manage that accommodation for persons claiming either Temporary Protection or International Protection in the Irish state, are certainly lucrative. 

What is clear from the vast funds, and who benefits from them, is that the asylum system in Ireland has, in effect, become an entirely new economic sector.  

Much of the controversy over such contracts around the country has been the perception that premises that might be (and were previously) used to accommodate tourists – and thus benefit the local economy – are increasingly being diverted into this obviously more attractive business.

Gript has previously reported on how this has encouraged international giants such as Aramark, who own Campbell Catering; Apollo Global Management, who own Tipco and Travelodge; Guestford who own the Red Cow, and Cape Wrath/Tetrarch which owns Citywest, to pitch for a slice of the multi-billion pie that the taxpayer is providing for all of this.

The Ballsbridge site was bought by Goldstein Property which has – as we shall see – shares personnel with Quanta Capital. The vast American based global management fund, Oaktree, is a backer of Quanta Capital – and Oaktree controlled assets of more than $170 billion in 2023.  (One of Oaktree’s founders, Howard Marks, was a notable funder of Hilary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.)

Goldstein Property also owns premises in East Wall and at Airways Industrial Estate, Santry, which have also been used to accommodate persons claiming International Protection.

One of the directors of Quanta Capital, Eoghan Coughlan, is also listed as a director of Goldstein Holdings Limited, registered in the Isle of Man, and Goldstein Properties UK. 

Barrister Joe Christle is also registered as one of the directors of Goldstein Properties UK and the founder and CEO of Quanta Capital, Mel Sutcliffe is listed as a “person of significant control” in the company. 

Christle is also currently the Chair of Quanta Capital. Happily, and surely a sign that “past dissensions” have been set aside, Christle and Sutcliffe, two scions of legendary Dublin republican families, now have on their advisory board Lady Alice de la Poer Beresford. 

Lady Alice oversees the Quanta-owned Kippure estate and Kippure Lodge which provides accommodation for asylum seekers and is managed by another company that is connected to the Ballsbridge principals.  

The lease to manage the Ballsbridge accommodation centre – presuming it passes muster on the fire safety concerns so dear to the hearts of local residents – has been given to Burvea Unlimited who the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) claim have “previous experience in the management of IPAS accommodation centres.”

Indeed they do, but you will not find Burvea Unlimited on the long list of entities who have, to the end of June 2023 (we await the latest figures from the Department), trousered tax dollars from the business of minding fleeing refugees.  The reason for this is that Burvea Unlimited was only incorporated a month ago, on December 14, 2023.  

However, the two directors of Burvea; Carol Dwyer and Sinead Fennelly, are also listed as directors of three other companies; Seefin Events which manages the Kippure centre,  and Gateway Integration, and Airways Centre Unlimited which have and continue to provide similar services. To date, the purchase orders for the Department between the beginning of 2022 and the end of the second quarter of last year show that the three companies concerned have drawn down more than €17,000,000 (€17 million) in payments.

As noted above, huge income streams are available to those involved in migrant accommodation and the asylum system in Ireland is now an entirely new economic sector.  

It involves sums of money that equal the value of industries that have been here for generations.  

Indeed, as local protestors in various counties have pointed out, this new sector is directly undermining some of those traditional sectors – not least in tourism.

It is also apparent that massively funded overseas corporations, some of them partnered with Irish companies, have seen this as a lucrative area, surpassing even in some cases their other interests in buying up Irish property that then becomes unavailable for working people even with mortgage approval because they are placed directly into the rental market.

All of this, apart altogether from the other societal impacts it has had and will have, is in the process of implementing what it is scarcely an exaggeration to describe as a social and economic transformation of virtually unprecedented scope.  Gript shall be pursuing this trail over the next while.