Donegal Town Mart Fiasco

clearz

Hi,

I don't know how many of you have being following the dismal economic growth that Donegal Town has seen in the last ten years, due to in-fighting, politics, and dam right perceived corruption. The latest in this ongoing saga is the publishing of a letter that Danny keeney, Managing Director of Keeney Construction, sent the then chairman of the mart on 28th September 2005. He had paid them a €70,000 deposit, as well as promising to build them a state of the art facility. This letter proves how well the mart could have benefitted from all this, but instead of going with Kenney they decided to go with Bennett Construction who made no promises or put any offers on the table, at least not near as comprehensive as what Keeney had offered. They didn't even ask Bennett for a deposit as they had done with Keeney. They also refused to return Keeney's deposit who had done everything in his power to accommodate the marts needs.
Recently Bennett has pulled out of the agreement leaving the mart high and dry and without a premisses. He didn't even have a deposit to lose.
Meanwhile the mart is in a sticky position. Do they put their tail between their legs and come crawling back to Keeney? They'll have to do something as South Donegal's economy is primary agriculture based and a fully functional mart is central to the local economy.

What are your views on what is happening in Donegal? This is going on to long (Keeney first tried to develop in Donegal in the year 2000), 10 years this craic has being going on for, while many towns in Ireland have prospered during those years Donegal seems to have become stagnant. If something is not done soon more and more young people will move away leaving an ageing ghost town behind them.

I have attacked the PDF file containing the article which was taken from the Donegal Times (22/08/10) I also have included in two images of the papers as all the words may not have been spelled correctly by the OCR.

Regards,
Someone in the know.

muffler

Call me cynical but that letter is nothing more than a PR exercise.

Fracture

I havent read over the letter because im about to head away for the day but from what i have read from the OP post, it isnt just Donegal Town that has been seeing this type of craic going on, most towns in Donegal are having similar trouble, if its not local businesses objecting to everything its the council objecting to the likes of Dunnes etc from building because their greed is more important than other peoples needs.

mistermouse

I'd say the ball is in Keeny's court now and he could renegotiate a far better deal, though it might not be worth proceeding as Keeney had planned before the recession

byte

Depends on what money he can get access to.

It could be argued that it's the perfect time to build, as labour costs should be fairly cheaper than during the "boom"

Winty

clearz wrote: »

Hi,

I don't know how many of you have being following the dismal economic growth that Donegal Town has seen in the last ten years, due to in-fighting, politics, and dam right perceived corruption. The latest in this ongoing saga is the publishing of a letter that Danny keeney, Managing Director of Keeney Construction, sent the then chairman of the mart on 28th September 2005. He had paid them a €70,000 deposit, as well as promising to build them a state of the art facility. This letter proves how well the mart could have benefitted from all this, but instead of going with Kenney they decided to go with Bennett Construction who made no promises or put any offers on the table, at least not near as comprehensive as what Keeney had offered.

So what's the latest with Donegal Mart word on the street is somebody is in trouble with the guards over letters posted around town