A letter from a property company that didn’t exist was submitted in support of a planning application for one of Niall Collins’s homes.
The defunct company offered to hand over land so parking space at Collins’s first home could be increased. The company however hadn’t legally existed for more than six years.
Meanwhile it can also be revealed that Collins’s wife twice used different variations of her first name when applying for permission to extend the couple’s Dooradoyle, Limerick city home.
Yesterday The Ditch reported that Collins claimed in a 2001 planning application that he lived in his parents’ house – this wasn’t the case. He has denied the allegations and is due to give a statement to the Dáil.
Though it is understood that Collins “is still awaiting full information relating to his planning application” before coming before the Dáil, The Ditch published his application in full last night.
Eimear, Emer, Eimer
In March 2006 an application was submitted to Limerick County Council seeking to add parking spaces at Collins’s first home in Dooradoyle.
A letter on headed notepaper from Ropaul Properties Ltd was included with the application.
The company had “agreed to cede” land to allow the construction work to proceed, according to the correspondence dated 8 February, 2006. The company’s registration number and directors’ names were noted at the bottom of the letter.
The company made the offer to address concerns raised by neighbours near the property.
“This will help alleviate a parking issue being raised by the residents in this estate,” reads the letter.
But the company didn’t exist.
CRO records confirm the property development company was dissolved in June 1999.
This application, which was ultimately withdrawn in April 2006, was submitted by Collins’s wife, Eimear O’Connor.
She however applied using the first name Eimer, dropping the A.
A signature matching this variation of her first name accompanied the planning application.
A year before, in February 2005, O’Connor used another variation on her first name in a successful planning application, this time preferring Emer.
The application sought permission to extend the same property. O’Connor again supplied a signed letter, this time signed Emer, as part of the application.
CRO, Land Registry and electoral register records confirm that O’Connor goes by the name Eimear.
Collins and O’Connor declined to comment.
