Wicklow County Council last night passed an emergency motion calling on the Council to oppose the application made by the owners of the Avon Rí site in Blessington as accommodation for persons seeking International Protection.
The motion under a suspension of Standing Orders was proposed by Independent Councillor Gerry O’Neill and seconded by Independent Councillor John Snell. None of the other Councillors opposed the motion.
O’Neill and Snell have been the most prominent of locally elected representatives who have opposed the manner in which so many of the centres have been placed in the county.
Councillor O’Neill had stated previously that while the Avon had been used for the accommodation of Ukrainian refugees that the owners had for the previous year been moving people from the IPAS centre at Kippure Lodge into Blessington with a view to turning it over entirely to International Protection applicants.
O’Neill had been told in April that the Avon was already listed as IPAS accommodation, one of eleven in County Wicklow with a total occupancy of 1,455.
As I reported in May here, the Department of Integration was seemingly aware of the transfer of IPAS residents and had said that there were then 95 residents in total at the Avon with plans to vacate all Ukrainians by August 8.
Councillor O’Neill had raised the issue at the July 7 Council meeting and asked whether the Council had followed up on a previous demand that it raise the issue of Avon with the Department. CEO Edel O’ Gorman told him that they had written to the Department but “had no response as yet.”
O’Gorman basically admitted that the Council had little control over all of this as “the local authority doesn’t allocate the spaces. We don’t get a say in where these persons are allocated. We make representations certainly on your behalf, which we have done on the Avon to the Department, but they make decisions themselves based on what accommodation is available and entering into contracts.”
As with other sites – most notably Kippure which we reported on last week – it would seem that all of this is taking place in the midst not only of concerted local opposition but confusion over planning applications.
Last night’s motion now commits Wicklow County Council to directly opposing a development which does not have its approval for an exemption and which, as the motion states, may indeed impact on already approved development of a much needed social housing project close by.
The Avon site has been owned since 2021 by Quanta Capital/Goldstein Property ICAV, having previously been a property that had been under the control of the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA.) ‘The Avon’ as an accommodation provider is owned by a company called Arturo Ventures Unlimited.
The directors of Arturo Ventures Unlimited are Carol Dwyer and Sinéad Fennelly and the secretary of the company is Millbank Trustees. Arturo Ventures Limited is owned by a company called Edgewell which is not registered as a company in the state.
Dwyer and Fennelly are also directors of Seefin Events which has the contract for Kippure Lodge which is also owned by Quanta Capital/Goldstein. Fennelly is also a director of other companies – Jetara, Airways Centre, Burvea and Gateway Integration – which have made tens of millions in accommodation payments.
She is also a director of Dougfield Management which is the management company for the Lakeshore Holiday estate, which is on the same site as the Avon. The other director of Dougfield is a chap called Eoghan Coughlan of Goldstein/Quanta which owns the Avon. Goldstein also owns the adjacent Lakeshore Holiday Village since June 2024.