For almost twenty years, drivers coming into Carrickmacross on the Ardee Road have passed the same unfinished apartment block at Magheross. Scaffolding now wraps the three-storey shell at Clós na Dromainne, and the developer says the fourteen two-bedroom flats should be ready by December 2027 — but Monaghan County Council is still pressing a compulsory purchase order after years of missed deadlines.
The Irish Times reported at the start of October that a completion date of December 2027 has been set for the block, with scaffolding erected in recent months. Two of twelve houses on the same site have been finished and put on the market at €360,000, with the rest due to come on stream over the coming months, according to the developer.
How long it has stood empty
Planning permission for the apartments, nineteen town houses, a shopping centre and a car park was granted in 2004. Work started two years later and stopped in 2008 after the financial crash. Belfast developer Stephen McMurrough acquired the site in June 2019, through a share purchase of East Coast Estates Ltd, describing it then as in a "state of severe dereliction" with no building work for more than a decade.
Seven houses were handed to the approved housing body Tuath in 2021 as phase one of a 33-home deal. Tuath told the Irish Times that, despite proposals with the council to finish the rest, the developer did not complete the remaining 26 homes and that Tuath has no further contract with East Coast Estates for those units.
Levy, CPO and a January decision
The apartment block, the twelve houses and a brownfield plot behind them were put on the county Derelict Sites Register in July 2025, with derelict-sites levies of €216,650 outstanding, the Irish Times said. In May the council issued a notice to compulsorily acquire the unfinished block. Objections sent the case to An Coimisiún Pleanála.
The Journal, tracking July CPO applications, said Monaghan County Council lodged its bid with the commission on 24 July for the unfinished block at Magheross, valued on the register at €230,000. The commission's decision is due by 4 January 2027.
McMurrough told the Irish Times he is "fully committed" to finishing the scheme and does not expect the commission to side with the council, arguing work is under way. A commencement notice for the apartments was issued at the start of September. He said structural reports show the three built storeys are sound, defective blockwork or steel will be replaced, and the finished building will meet current building and fire regulations.
What councillors and the council say
Monaghan County Council said it has "engaged extensively" with the owner and received several construction programmes that "have not been adhered to". It knows work is continuing on some units and that houses have been advertised, and will consider taking individual properties off the register once architects' certificates of substantial completion are supplied.
Sinn Féin councillor Colm Carthy has been pressing the case for years. Speaking to Northern Sound in June, when scaffolding first went up in earnest, he said municipal district councillors had been united in pushing the project and shared the town's annoyance that the "eyesore" was left to rot. In the Irish Times he said the derelict-sites levy was "the stick", and that if scaffolding alone does not bring real progress, elected members have called for the council to CPO the building so it can be delivered as housing.
For more on housing delivery in the county, see our story on the opening of Slí Lorcáin in Monaghan Town.
