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Child Item

Selling school lands to private developers: should the state be forced to buy them?

[Deleted User]

I suspect at least some of you saw Prime Time last night, or heard Drivetime this evening. In essence because of the higher price of property the religious orders are choosing to sell off what most of us regard as public schools (i.e. non fee-charging schools which are entirely state-funded). Prime Time focused on three schools (Clonkeen College in Blackrock & Our Lady's Grove, Clonskeagh) but I know of at least one other (Oatlands College) in the same area which has also recently sold off school lands to a developer.

The part which annoyed everybody is that it was done in secret. In Clonkeen, the Christian Brothers (who also own Oatlands) signed contracts before informing the school/parents/local community. Had the Christian Brothers made their intentions public it is quite clear what would have happened: the state would have been successfully pressurised to purchase the lands from the CB, and these schools would therefore keep their sports etc facilities. But this did not happen and instead the CB did the dishonourable backroom deal with a property developer rather than ensure the "public" school keeps its lands. The irony that the Christian Brothers claim this stunt was necessary to compensate victims of their previous treatment of students is clearly lost on them. Their other justification was that the students could use local public parks for training and didn't need school land for sports.

It is all yet another reason why there should be no place in this state for state-funded schools which are owned by private corporations/entities. That all of these privately owned schools (c. 85% of all schools in this state) receive hundreds of millions of euro of taxpayers' money for development and then can sell off school lands without any impediment after that state investment is extraordinary (. If the state funds them, the state should own the property that it funds. At the current rate of selling off, school lands in Dublin and other cities are going to be greatly reduced for future generations.

So while I would have no time for the sly underhand way the religious order sold school lands, there's no doubt that the state bears most responsibility for this by financing and supporting the current system/refusing to buy out these religious-owned school properties. Until the state gets off the fence, this selling of school lands is only going to get much, much worse.

Do you think the state should prioritise buying out all the religious orders who own c. 85% of the publicly funded schools in Ireland in 2017? (the VEC/ETB schools, which are 100% owned by the state, are the only publicly owned schools in Ireland - as shocking as that sounds.)

1. Prime Time, 29 June 2017 (click on 'Land Lost')

2. Drivetime, 30 June 2017 (starts at 40:20)

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Mrs OBumble

myshirt wrote: »

Where did they get this vast wealth in the first place? How was it accumulated?

Partially by not paying the nuns / brothers who worked in their institutions.

KyussBeeshop wrote: »

So for a very large number of these cases, you just have to fix the definition of the zoning category these lands are on - to prohibit residential development (which was how it was supposed to be in the first place...).

This will almost exclusively impact what was church land.

I'm sorry, but WHY do we want to stop houses being built? I though we had a real issue with not having enough habitable, available houses in many places???

Donald Trump

riffmongous wrote: »

Stealing? We should be worried about stealing from a group who committed mass child abuse and conspired to cover it up? These groups are lucky they weren't all nationalised and banned from having any presence in the country after what they did.

The problem with your analogy and the reason for this thread is they are raising the funds by selling off land that is being used by the State and the State is funding, so even if the land is worth more to the developer the State will still have to provide extra funding to make up for the lost land, that's why it's underhanded and just another **** you to the people from so-called religious groups without a shred of decency.

That's awful shite that you're coming out with in fairness. Completely irrelevant.

Property rights are enshrined in the constitution. Whether or not you hate Catholics does not give you the right to steal their land on your own whim. If the state wants to buy the land, let them buy it at the market rate. If the Church sells it to someone else for lower then that's their own loss as they'll still owe the state money (which would keep some people happy as they'd have something to whinge about).

Who else's property rights would you like to extinguish? GAA/FAI/IABA/Athletics-Ireland? Because they all provide facilities in areas where the state has been found wanting.

You forgot to mention Bankers while you were at it. And the 1% elites. Rabble rabble.

KyussBeeshop

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Partially by not paying the nuns / brothers who worked in their institutions.

I'm sorry, but WHY do we want to stop houses being built? I though we had a real issue with not having enough habitable, available houses in many places???

Because we didn't give the church a slice of our public parks and vital greenspace, to turn what was supposed to be a sports ground or similar community/school amenity, into a bloody residential development!

Not every slice of greenspace in Dublin is up for grabs you know - just because a corrupt institution pulled enough strings, passed enough backhanders, to corruptly get their special non-residential land zoning, rewritten to allow residential development - so they could resell land they were sold for a pittance (practically given...) by the state, for bloody millions in private profit, on land that should be owned by public parks or otherwise by the public/local-community...

Do you want to just grab massive chunks out of parks in the city for property development, just because our government are deliberately sitting on their hands, on a constrained property market? Because in some cases, that's exactly what that type of view is going to lead to...

Donald Trump

KyussBeeshop wrote: »

Because we didn't give the church a slice of our public parks and vital greenspace, to turn what was supposed to be a sports ground or similar community/school amenity, into a bloody residential development!

Not every slice of greenspace in Dublin is up for grabs you know - just because a corrupt institution pulled enough strings, passed enough backhanders, to corruptly get their special non-residential land zoning, rewritten to allow residential development - so they could resell land they were sold for a pittance (practically given...) by the state, for bloody millions in private profit, on land that should be owned by public parks or otherwise by the public/local-community...

You do realize that towns and houses haven't been there since time immemorial?

Junkyard Tom

Can the Criminal Assets Bureau not be brought in to take a look at this issue?

KyussBeeshop

Donald Trump wrote: »

You do realize that towns and houses haven't been there since time immemorial?

Fuck anyone, who tries to abuse the zoning laws to turn what was supposed to be non-residential land (the way the zoning was originally written...), into residential land - including land right in the middle of parks in Dublin, that was never supposed to become residential - anyone investing in that I will happily see fucked, by the zoning laws being returned to what they were in the past.

The residential zoning of these lands was gained through church lobbying and corrupt interaction between the church and state - whoever invests in that can get fucked - the public should not be the ones to lose out once again, because of state/church/property-development corruption (with the developers today, being allowed massive gains from developing this corruptly gained land) - the land zoning designation can easily be rewritten, to prohibit residential development.

If any land is left that is suitable for residential redevelopment - then they can apply for rezoning - the way it should have been in the first place.

Donald Trump

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Can the Criminal Assets Bureau not be brought in to take a look at this issue?

Do you think that those grounds, previously used by that school, are the proceeds of crime? :pac:

Donald Trump

KyussBeeshop wrote: »

Fuck anyone, who tries to abuse the zoning laws to turn what was supposed to be non-residential land (the way the zoning was originally written...), into residential land - including land right in the middle of parks in Dublin, that was never supposed to become residential - anyone investing in that I will happily see fucked, by the zoning laws being returned to what they were in the past.

The residential zoning of these lands was gained through church lobbying and corrupt interaction between the church and state - whoever invests in that can get fucked - the public should not be the ones to lose out once again, because of state/church/property-development corruption (with the developers today, being allowed massive gains from developing this corruptly gained land) - the land zoning designation can easily be rewritten, to prohibit residential development.

If any land is left that is suitable for residential redevelopment - then they can apply for rezoning - the way it should have been in the first place.

Sorry. If we had known about your situation we would not have asked you questions

Junkyard Tom

Donald Trump wrote: »

Do you think that those grounds, previously used by that school, are the proceeds of crime? :pac:

If they're owned by the Church? Yes. The Magdalene Laundries workers were effectively slaves.

Donald Trump

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

If they're owned by the Church? Yes. The Magdalene Laundries workers were effectively slaves.

Well get on the case there right away Sherlock Holmes. All you need to do is trace the proceeds of the profit from the laundries to the purchase of that piece of land and then prove that those profits were from illegal activities and you have the case solved.

The other guy KyussBeeshop seems to think "we" gave them the land. Which would rule out them being obtained through crime.

[Deleted User]

Donald Trump wrote: »

That's awful shite that you're coming out with in fairness. Completely irrelevant.

Property rights are enshrined in the constitution. Whether or not you hate Catholics does not give you the right to steal their land on your own whim. If the state wants to buy the land, let them buy it at the market rate. If the Church sells it to someone else for lower then that's their own loss as they'll still owe the state money (which would keep some people happy as they'd have something to whinge about).

Who else's property rights would you like to extinguish? GAA/FAI/IABA/Athletics-Ireland? Because they all provide facilities in areas where the state has been found wanting.

You forgot to mention Bankers while you were at it. And the 1% elites. Rabble rabble.

Spewing out the shíte there yourself, the old anti-catholic card, great, I might as well call you a paedo lover if that's the level you want to post at :rolleyes:

I'm very far from anti-catholic, and have plenty of respect for the good priests, but I think the redress payouts are a disgrace and a sick indictment of the organisations that are more concerned with covering their own asses than any actual penitence

Donald Trump

riffmongous wrote: »

Spewing out the shíte there yourself, the old anti-catholic card, great, I might as well call you a paedo lover if that's the level you want to post at :rolleyes:

I'm very far from anti-catholic, and have plenty of respect for the good priests, but I think the redress payouts are a disgrace and a sick indictment of the organisations that are more concerned with covering their own asses than any actual penitence

One of my friends is black eh?

I assume that the church are not unilaterally setting the values of the payouts. So if you have issue with the payouts, whether you think they are too little or too much, you should address it to those responsible

[Deleted User]

Donald Trump wrote: »

One of my friends is black eh?

http://www.boards.ie/search/submit/?query=catholic&forum=&user=359774&date_from=&date_to=
Nearly 6,000 posts and 7 years, you'd think if I was a rabid anti-catholic there'd be a bit more than that there

Junkyard Tom

Donald Trump wrote: »

All you need to do is trace the proceeds of the profit from the laundries to the purchase of that piece of land and then prove that those profits were from illegal activities and you have the case solved.

They did with John Gilligan - I'm sure a well motivated team could seize an awful lot of Church property given the resources and political will.

Do you not think it's justified that the Church should pay its many victims compensation?

Donald Trump

riffmongous wrote: »

http://www.boards.ie/search/submit/?query=catholic&forum=&user=359774&date_from=&date_to=
Nearly 6,000 posts and 7 years, you'd think if I was a rabid anti-catholic there'd be a bit more than that there

Do you want me to search through your post history or something? I'm not going to do that.

Do you believe in the principle of property rights as protected and enshrined in the constitution? If you do then the system is this.
1) Church found guilty of crime and fine/charges/compensation orders by the courts
2) Church disposes of assets to pay for above fines/charges/compensation

If 2 is not done, then the church should be pursued under the normal statutory channels and mechanisms.

None of the above gives you the right to decide you can unilaterally dissolve their property rights in order the seize their property at below market value in lieu of the compensation/charges. Eventually, if they do not pay, they can go to the courts and the sheriff will seize the assets and dispose of them and give the state the proceeds. It's not North Korea!

Donald Trump

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

They did with John Gilligan - I'm sure a well motivated team could seize an awful lot of Church property given the resources and political will.

Must have been a lot of money in washing sheets. A lot, if not most of, the Churches land was bequeathed to them. Also, property cannot be seized based on "political will". That would be a frankly dangerous and nonsense suggestion.

Do you not think it's justified that the Church should pay its many victims compensation?

Did anyone suggest otherwise? The thread is not about that. Some people in some area found out that the church is selling part of its property that its school currently has use of. So some southside dubliners are getting their knickers in a twist. But it's a bit of a leap to imply "hey hold on a minute there. A lot of priests abused kids and did terrible things in the past. So those poor southsiders should be given the ownership of large school grounds for free".

Let the church sell the property and hand the money over to the victims. Not to the locals of that school. The state, or any other group or individual is free to purchase and let the school continue to use it.

A secondary school not too far from me had a lovely full sized GAA pitch right beside it. You just walked out the side door and there was just wide open grass. I moved away for a few years. When I went past it a few years later I noticed that apartments were built on about half of the pitch. I asked someone about it and they told me that the school never actually owned the pitch. A developer had owned it but just let them use it for about 20 years (or maybe it had passed through a string of developers). On one hand that sounds crappy, but on the other hand they had the use of it for probably next to nothing for 20 years

Junkyard Tom

It's perverse that the rights of criminal property-owners supercede the rights of survivors of thier terrible crimes to compensation.

Junkyard Tom

Donald Trump wrote: »

A lot, if not most of, the Churches land was bequeathed to them

So what?

[Deleted User]

Donald Trump wrote: »

Do you want me to search through your post history or something? I'm not going to do that.

Do you believe in the principle of property rights as protected and enshrined in the constitution? If you do then the system is this.
1) Church found guilty of crime and fine/charges/compensation orders by the courts
2) Church disposes of assets to pay for above fines/charges/compensation

If 2 is not done, then the church should be pursued under the normal statutory channels and mechanisms.

None of the above gives you the right to decide you can unilaterally dissolve their property rights in order the seize their property at below market value in lieu of the compensation/charges. Eventually, if they do not pay, they can go to the courts and the sheriff will seize the assets and dispose of them and give the state the proceeds. It's not North Korea!

I made it easy for you, there's only about 10 posts to look through

Did you actually read any of the indo article link I posted earlier?

In the dying days of the government in 2002 then education minister Michael Woods arranged a controversial indemnity deal with 18 religious orders that they would hand over property, cash and assets worth 128 million euro (£111 million) to cover some of the costs.

The C&AG said 21 million euro (£18 million) of this was left to be transferred to the State at the end of 2015.
But the audit also revealed that a second deal was agreed after the Ryan report was published in 2009 - cataloguing decades of abuse and cover-ups in institutions for children - which agreed to an additional 353 million euro (£306 million) of cash and property being handed over. That was subsequently reduced to 226 million euro (£196 million) in 2015.

What you outline above probably would have been great, especially considering as I also posted earlier

In its latest bulletin, the redress board said the highest award so far had been €300,000. It has paid out €148.5m in legal costs .

Of the 14,667 applications it received, 11 were rejected and 814 were withdrawn, refused or given no award.
In a breakdown of awards the bulletin said that 29 were between €200,000 and €300,000; 209 ranged between €150,000 and €200,000 and 1,717 of the payouts were between €100,00 to €150,000.

Nearly half -- 6,407 -- of the awards were between €50,000 to €100,000. Another 4,567 awards were under €50,000.

However, the level of the awards was severely criticised by abuse survivor and 'God Squad' author Paddy Doyle, who yesterday said they fell far short of the sums granted in the courts. He said the court awards were nearer €350,000 and victims had been rushed into accepting the redress board.

Donald Trump

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

So what?

Criminal assets bureau is to confiscate the proceeds of crime. If for some reason Dolores McNamara leaves you 100m Euro in her will and you are the biggest cunt in Ireland and you go around causing trouble and getting fines, the CAB can't come and confiscate your 100m. It isn't the proceeds of crime. If you go through the courts and get a judgement registered against you then then you can be pursued that way. Nothing to do with CAB.

Donald Trump

riffmongous wrote: »

I made it easy for you, there's only about 10 posts to look through

Did you actually read any of the indo article link I posted earlier?

What you outline above probably would have been great, especially considering as I also posted earlier

What you posted is irrelevant.

If the state feel that what was promised/agreed is not being delivered then they bring the Church to court. The court orders the seizure and disposal of assets and the sheriff acts on same. Assets are disposed of and money is given to state.

What are you suggesting? That instead of victims being compensated, locals in Southside Dublin are allowed to seize Church grounds? Excuse my French, but how the fuck is that going to work. Why these locals and not some locals in Longford or Cork or Mullingar? Who gets to say when enough is taken to cover the victims? even though the victims wouldn't actually be getting anything

[Deleted User]

Donald Trump wrote: »

What you posted is irrelevant.

If the state feel that what was promised/agreed is not being delivered then they bring the Church to court. The court orders the seizure and disposal of assets and the sheriff acts on same. Assets are disposed of and money is given to state.

What are you suggesting? That instead of victims being compensated, locals in Southside Dublin are allowed to seize Church grounds? Excuse my French, but how the fuck is that going to work. Why these locals and not some locals in Longford or Cork or Mullingar? Who gets to say when enough is taken to cover the victims? even though the victims wouldn't actually be getting anything

Look if you can't be bothered to read my posts, and I'm referring to my posts in this thread, then I'm not going to bother with yours, especially if you don't even have a clue what we are talking about

Junkyard Tom

Donald Trump wrote: »

If for some reason Dolores McNamara leaves you 100m Euro in her will and you are the biggest cunt in Ireland and you go around causing trouble and getting fines, the CAB can't come and confiscate your 100m.

More's the pity. Could someone come after me in the civil courts if I was, say, involved in moving peadophiles around to protect them from accusations while ensuring there'd be more children raped and assaulted as a result?

Donald Trump

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

It's perverse that the rights of criminal property-owners supercede the rights of survivors of thier terrible crimes to compensation.

Hmmm. I thought that the story was that they were selling these assets to get money. That money can be used to compensate victims.

The nub of the matter is that the public get a lot of use and benefit from church assets such as schools and pitches. If people scream that these assets have to be sold to pay victims, then they can't complain when they are sold.

It's a kind of NIMBYism. "Bastard church should sell all their lands.....except for the ones that we use and have the benefit of. They shouldn't sell those".

Church has property. Victims need to be paid. Church needs to sell some of their property and give them the money.

Donald Trump

riffmongous wrote: »

Look if you can't be bothered to read my posts, and I'm referring to my posts in this thread, then I'm not going to bother with yours, especially if you don't even have a clue what we are talking about

Yeah, fair enough. Whatever you're talking about, it's not related to the issue on the thread. So wires are probably getting crossed. Title of thread is

"Selling school lands to private developers: should the state be forced to buy them"

No mention of paedophiles there at all

Donald Trump

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

More's the pity. Could someone come after me in the civil courts if I was, say, involved in moving peadophiles around to protect them from accusations while ensuring there'd be more children raped and assaulted as a result?

Yes. Probably. And if you had property or assets then they could be taken off you by the courts regardless of how you came to own them.

If somehow or other you obtained those assets as a result of your criminal activities - say you were getting paid to move those paedos around , and you couldn't show any evidence of how you could have gotten that money by legal means, then the CAB could probably seize them as the proceeds of crime. But CAB don't enforce general court awards

Junkyard Tom

Donald Trump wrote: »

The numb of the matter is that the public get a lot of use and benefit from church assets such as schools and pitches.

The church didn't earn these assets they were bequeathed to them or bought by means of the generosity/stupidity of the public. Another thing that needs to be tackled is tax-breaks for 'enterprises' that describe themselves as charities when they act more like businesses.

the_syco

Donald Trump wrote: »

Property rights are enshrined in the constitution. Whether or not you hate Catholics does not give you the right to steal their land on your own whim. If the state wants to buy the land, let them buy it at the market rate. If the Church sells it to someone else for lower then that's their own loss as they'll still owe the state money (which would keep some people happy as they'd have something to whinge about).

The churches owe the government money. Either the church sells the land, and give the government all the money, or they give the government the land in lieu of the money.

Either way, the government should tax the churches.

Donald Trump

the_syco wrote: »

The churches owe the government money. Either the church sells the land, and give the government all the money, or they give the government the land in lieu of the money.

Either way, the government should tax the churches.

No problem with the first part. But you have logistical issues with the second part.

If a piece of land is worth 1m to the department of education but 2m to a developer, and the state seizes it, how much do you knock off the bill?

If you only knock 1m off the bill then you are ripping off the church. If you knock 2m off the bill then you are ripping off the state. It's a minefield for courts to go down that route!

Better and cleaner to let them sell the land. The state should not be forced to buy the land (which was the question in the title of the thread) if they don't want to. That would be silly and a license to print money for the church. Let them dispose of their assets at market prices and to the highest bidder if that is what they want to do

mullyboyee

Forgive me if I sound stupid but,

These religious organisatitions owe reparations to their victims and they are selling their assets to cover this.

They happen to be school grounds. But should their victims not receive compensation?

I believe they should. If a soccer pitch has to go, so be it.