{"id":634755,"date":"2026-09-24T17:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T17:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/634755\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T17:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T17:34:08","slug":"tech-multimillionaire-wins-planning-battle-over-demolition-of-e7-5m-dalkey-home-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/634755\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech multimillionaire wins planning battle over demolition of \u20ac7.5m Dalkey home \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A multimillionaire tech entrepreneur and his wife have won a planning battle over the demolition of their \u20ac7.5 million home in Dalkey<\/a>, Co Dublin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la<\/a> granted Barry and Andrea Napier<\/a> retention permission for the demolition of the existing dwelling and planning permission to reconstruct the house to its original design at Rarc-An-Ilan on Coliemore Road.<\/p>\n

In June, D\u00fan Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council<\/a> refused the Napiers\u2019 application for retention and planning permission for the reconstruction. The case came before the planning commission following the Napiers appealing the decision in July.<\/p>\n

Barry Napier is the founder and former chief executive of software firm Cubic3. In December 2023, Napier signed a deal to sell a controlling stake in Cubic3 to Japanese lender Softbank for \u20ac473 million, netting him and his fellow shareholders a multimillion euro payout in the process.<\/p>\n

The Napiers purchased the four-bedroom Dalkey home for \u20ac7.5 million in June 2024.<\/p>\n

In its ruling, An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la found that due to the poor structural and uninhabitable condition of the dwelling that was demolished, there was a strong justification for demolition and replacement and it would not seriously injure the visual or residential amenities of the area or of properties in the vicinity.<\/p>\n

The commission\u2019s ruling comes almost 18 months after the Napiers in April 2025 secured a \u201cparent\u201d planning permission from the council to upgrade their home at Rarc-An-Ilan. The upgrade involved the demolition of a single-storey extension to the side and rear, a two-storey garage and apartment, a lower ground floor garden room and a terrace to the rear.<\/p>\n

The 229sq m (2,464sq ft) dwelling was to be left intact and planning consultants for the Napiers, Thornton O\u2019Connor Town Planning, explained that the complete demolition of all structures \u201cwas undertaken as a result of severe subsurface constraints discovered only after works commenced with associated urgent health and safety concerns for contractors\u201d.<\/p>\n

The council refused the Napiers\u2019 planning retention in June, finding a strong justification was not provided for the demolition of the dwelling.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Dalkey couple seek injunction over neighbour\u2019s alleged unauthorised developmentOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la\u2019s inspector in the case, Killian Harrington, recommended that planning retention and permission be granted.<\/p>\n

Harrington carried out a site visit on August 22nd and recorded that there were \u201ccurrently no structures remaining on site\u201d following the demolition of the dwelling.<\/p>\n

In his report, Harrington said it was \u201cclear from the submitted engineers report that the existing house was in very poor condition and was both structurally unsound and uninhabitable\u201d.<\/p>\n

The inspector said he agreed with the Napiers \u201cthat this could only have been revealed as the works were undertaken and materials exposed\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said: \u201cAs such, I would agree with the conclusions that its demolition and replacement is justified in this instance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A multimillionaire tech entrepreneur and his wife have won a planning battle over the demolition of their \u20ac7.5…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[75,269611,72,37468,615,12842,61,60,2549],"class_list":["post-634755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-an-coimisiun-pleanala","tag-barry-napier","tag-business","tag-dalkey","tag-dublin","tag-dun-laoghaire-rathdown-county-council","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-planning-permission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}