Laois County Council places old convent on derelict sites register

The Old Convent in Stradbally has been placed on the derelict site register. 

The move will see the owner of the building being hit with a levy equivalent to seven percent of the market value of the property every year.

Fianna Fail Cllr, Paschal McEvoy, raised the issue when he tabled a motion at a recent meeting.   

He asked “that this Council add the old Convent to the Derelict Site register in Laois.”

A written response to the motion by Senior Planner, David O’Hara, was read at the meeting by Senior Executive Engineer, Philip McVeigh.

“The Old Convent, Stradbally is on the Derelict Site Register. A levy of seven percent of the market value of the property has been issued to the registered owner,” Mr O’Hara wrote. 

Cllr McEvoy welcomed the response at the Portarlington Graiguecullen Municipal District Meeting. 

“I am not going to put down the owner on this one because he only owns, I’m not sure how long, it’s not too long anyway,” he remarked. 

“When the nuns left the convent they should have handed it over to the parish,” said Cllr McEvoy. 

He said the Convent in Mountrath was handed over and had a similar course been taken in Stradbally he had  “no doubt it would have been a fabulous” building now. 

“This is a preserved building. It is absolutely falling down now. It is dangerously falling down,” he said. 

He believes the new owner intends to build apartments at the site but said he hasn’t seen any planning application in relation to it. 

“It is shameful that it wasn’t handed over to the people of Stradbally when the nuns were vacating it,” said Cllr McEvoy.

Cllr McEvoy said at one point the building had at one point been on sale for €1 million.  He had previously encouraged the council to examine the possibility of buying the building for community use. He welcomed the imposition of the levy but said the building probably wasn’t worth much at this stage. 

Independent Cllr Aisling Moran agreed with Cllr McEvoy. She said the building is “totally falling down” but the levy would include the  value of the lands the building is on. She said the council should have bought the building by Compulsory Purchase Order(CPO). 

Sinn Fein Cllr Aidan Mullins welcomed the news  but question why the process takes so long. He said he had been raising the issue of  the derelict AIB Bank in Portarlington for seven years before it was placed on the register. 

He believed the levy should increase year on year rather than being a set seven percent annually.

“I don’t know if it is enough… the second year it should be up to 10 or 12 percent,” he said. 

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Cllr Moran said she was glad to see the levy being imposed but she wanted to know how many levies were being paid. 

She said when she enquired last year she was told that none had been paid.