This story was first published in the Irish Mail on Sunday on 30/10/2011
By: Michael O’Farrell
Investigations Editor
THREE swimming pools, a gym, a powder room, landscaped gardens, a private bar – and a taxpayer-funded salary of €200,000.
Welcome to the opulent world of Nama developer Sean Mulryan.
The Dáil Public Accounts Committee heard this week that he is in line for a lucrative bonus from Nama if he makes anything anything above the cut price it paid for loans. And that’s on top of the salary he’s paid to manage his developments.
Because the State has also bailed out the banks, it means the taxpayer will lose out on the double – and developers such as Mulryan are set to accrue a fortune.
Nama’s CEO Brendan McDonagh said that if developers recover just the price paid by Nama, and not even the value of the loan they took out, they could retain 10% of money repaid above that ‘financial milestone’ to encourage debt repayments.
This means that if Nama paid €1bn for a €2bn loan book, the taxpayer is left paying out €1bn, yet the developer is getting a bonus if he can get back half the money he borrowed.
If the figures sound too big to be true, look again. Mr Mulryan owes Nama €2.8bn. And while we are paying for the risks taken by his company, the developer’s life of luxury continues. His firm Ballymore Properties is the bad loans agency’s second largest client, after Joe O’Reilly, who was photographed last year by the Irish Mail on Sunday as he relaxed at an Algarve golf resort.
But the scale and luxury of Sean Mulryan’s home in Kildare dwarfs even that of other Nama developers.
Set amid 240 acres, Mr Mulryan lives in the stunning Ardenode Stud, a renovated late 18th century home, close to Ballymore Eustace. It’s a long way from his youth when he left school in Roscommon to become a stone mason.
The house is a massive 1,458 sq. m. – 17 times bigger than the average Irish house.
Mr Mulryan and his wife Bernadine also got permission in 2007 to add a new ‘floating transparent glass pavilion wing’, adding a gym, spa pool and hydro pool, as well as a master bedroom and relaxation room. The two new pools are in addition to an existing outdoor pool.
Plans submitted to Kildare County Council also give an insight into the lives of the Mulryans, who were famous for throwing lavish parties where guests such as Anglo Irish Bank’s Sean FitzPatrick would min-gle with Fianna Fáil’s Charlie McCreevy and Brian Cowen. The plans detail arrangements to ensure that enough water and waste provision is available for eight double bedrooms, a permanent office staff of five, a grounds staff of seven, and functions for between 150 to 200 guests seven to eight times a year.
The home has its own bar – a feature which was no doubt in full use in 2004 when Mulryan had Debbie Harry perform at his 50th birthday.
Mr Mulryan is tipped to be one of the most likely Nama developers to survive, even though he had €1.4bn in Anglo loans and €750m in Irish Nationwide loans.
That’s because Mulryan is widely recognised as a key contributor to the regeneration of parts of London, as well as being the biggest landowner in the docklands area for the 2012 London Olympics.
While refusing to comment on the €200,000 Nama salary, the company has defended its potential. ‘As the majority of our assets are Londonbased and deemed independently as prime assets, we are now working to the plan agreed,’ a statement said, adding that all of its staff had taken ‘extensive pay cuts’, and that no member of staff was paid more than €200,000.
ENDS
