Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 114: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the position regarding an estate (details supplied) in County Cork; if he is satisfied that the State received adequate consideration for the sale of its property; if this transaction was ever examined as to its propriety; the steps taken by his Department to safeguard the property interests of the State in such transactions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16496/08]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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Under Section 28 (2) of the State Property Act 1954, the Minister for Finance assumes responsibility for all personal property and land vested in or held in trust for a body corporate (other than personal property or land held by such body in trust for another person) immediately prior to its dissolution. Upon the dissolution of the body corporate, such property becomes State property. The effect of Section 28 is that the Minister does not hold the assets of dissolved companies as beneficial owner. He holds them in trust. The title which the Minister acquires under this section has been described as a defeasible title since, if the dissolved company is restored to the Register of Companies within twenty years of the date of its dissolution, its property is automatically restored to it. The State Property Act also includes, in Section 31, a power for the Minister to waive the interest acquired under Section 28 of the Act.

It appears that the property which is the subject of the current question was held within a company which was struck off the Register of Companies in September, 1972 for failure to file annual returns with the Companies Office. The beneficial owner of the property applied to my Department for a waiver of the interest acquired by the Minister for Finance under the provisions of the State Property Act and that waiver, in respect of which the consideration was £160, was completed in October, 1986. The effect of the waiver would have been to allow the beneficial owner to complete the process of assembling a satisfactory title. The waiver itself would have formed only a limited element in the establishment of that title and the transaction was a normal exercise of my Department's functions.

I wish to advise the Deputy that a question similar to the current question was answered by me in November last. At the time the reply to that question was prepared, it was understood to relate to an adjacent property which was the subject of a similar corporate holding structure. I am now advised that that question was intended to refer to the same property as the current question.