Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 12 May 2022
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health
New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed)
Mr. Simon McGarr:
That, of course, goes back to the exact terms of the lease. I do not believe the Holles Street lease, for example, involves the Earl of Pembroke appointing three of the directors and I do not believe it involves the kind of covenants and restrictions on permitted use in this lease. One is not the same as the other. Generally speaking, leasehold interests can be as restrictive or as unrestricted as agreed between the parties. A leasehold interest is not, in itself, objectionable. The reason a leasehold interest causes difficulty in this case - the difficulty I identify - is that there is a restriction on the permitted use, which, unfortunately, involves an ambiguity.
That restriction, I think, is not intended to cause problems. That is to say the drafters did not intend there to be an ambiguity; rather, it has been put in there but the consequences are that there is an ambiguity. An ambiguity in the permitted use of the lease results in a risk of some form of problem down the line with a future set of people who do not share the understanding there now.
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