When the late Liam Lawlor was before the Mahon tribunal, his family home, Somerton House in Lucan, Co Dublin, was reported as being worth between €3 million and €10 million. Following the death in 2019 of Hazel, his widow, the James Gandon-designed house has gone on the market with a more modest price tag. The DNG estate agency is seeking either €1.25 million for the house on 3.8 acres, or €1.5 million for the house on 4.3 acres.
In 2008 the tribunal tried to pursue Lawlor’s estate to recover costs of €430,000 owed to it, but the Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that the estate transferred solely to his widow when the former TD died in a Moscow car crash in 2005.
The brochure describes it as a Georgian house of 400 sq m with outbuildings converted for residential use, although planning permission for these would need to be “regularised by the buyer”. The site also has “potential for development, subject to future rezoning”. If only Lawlor were still alive to grease the wheels.
Steward’s Lodge calls to be pressed into service
The Dutch and Belgian royal families both announced last week that they would house several Ukrainian families in properties they own.
Ireland may not have a royal family but we do have a taxpayer-funded house lying empty. Steward’s Lodge, refurbished at a cost of €600,000 to be a taoiseach’s residence, has not been used by Micheál Martin since he rose to the highest office in June 2020, the Office of Public Works confirmed last week.
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Isn’t it a shame that a refurbished four-bedroom home beside the Phoenix Park is lying idle?
● RTE’s Cloch Le Carn documentary series looks at Des O’Malley on Tuesday and gives an insight into the home life of the founder of the Progressive Democrats. While posters were declaring “Dessie Can Do It”, at home he could barely make a cup of tea, his son Eoin says. When he bought a house in Dublin to ease his Dail commute, Pat, his wife, used to travel up to change the sheets. “An old-fashioned Irish father,” is how Eoin sums it up.
Jim Gavin to lead Dublin mayor discussions
Dr Sam may face more bad medicine ahead
When Bassam “Sam” Naser, a Dublin GP, was jailed for 16 months in 2018 for using an undeclared bank account to hide €100,000 in income from Revenue, supporters including John McColgan, the producer of Riverdance, and Senator Frances Black called on Charlie Flanagan, then justice minister, to intervene on “humanitarian grounds”. Now the doctor, a prominent figure in the Irish-Palestinian community, faces disciplinary action from the Irish Medical Council (IMC) for not notifying it about his criminal conviction.
Naser’s barrister at the hearing said he had since repaid the money and that his imprisonment had been “devastating” for his family.
Seanad nominee panels are a blast from the past
The register of nominating bodies for the Seanad’s vocational panels has been revised but the updated list still reads like something from a different age.
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Among the bodies that can nominate candidates to the cultural and education panel are the Irish Countrywomen’s Association and the Old Dublin Society, while the Dairy Executives’ Association and the Irish Greyhound Owners and Breeders Federation can nominate to the agricultural panel.
Meanwhile, the Caravan, Camping and Mobile Home Society can nominate candidates to the industrial and commercial panel. Well, they do say the Seanad is a bit of a holiday camp.
● Beware the dangers of WhatsApp. A Dublin journalist has demonstrated the perils of posting simultaneously to multiple groups after he mistakenly put an inappropriate joke in a group set up by the Social Democrats to share releases with the media. After a post on Cian O’Callaghan’s Ban on Sex for Rent Bill, the hapless hack responded with a risqué gag about a man paying a visit to a sperm-donation clinic. After quickly deleting it, the journo apologised. “Jesus sorry, wrong group,” he said.
Gerard Crowley
