Latest news with #ConorGleeson
Irish Times
13-06-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Irish investor group targets Polish rental sector
A new Irish-led property platform has set its sights on the fledgling Polish private rental sector (PRS) market, at a time when the Republic's rental market is in a state of flux amid a fresh round of planned reforms. Dublin-based Bartek Real Estate, backed by a board of senior Irish legal, real estate and investment figures including Niall Molloy, founder of data centres operator Echelon and David Dillon, cofounder of law firm Dillon Eustace, is seeking to raise up to €40 million of initial equity. The firm, where Irish veteran investor in Polish property, William Gleeson, is also board member and whose son, Conor Gleeson, is a cofounder, said it is working on an initial development project of 133 apartments in Lodz, a city about 140km southwest of Warsaw. It is assessing more than 50 project opportunities. Bartek also plans to raise debt to deploy alongside equity on developments. It will work in partnership with Polish developer OPG Property Professionals, where William Gleeson is founder and chairman. Bartek has a build-and-hold strategy. READ MORE 'Poland is at an inflection point – with strong rental demand, a housing shortfall of over 1.5 million units, and a nascent PRS market ready for institutionalisation,' said Conor Gleeson, who previously worked with accountancy group Azets Ireland and private equity firm Renatus. 'This is a chance to be early and smart.' Poland, which has a population of about 38 million and has been one of the fastest-growing economies in the European Union in recent years, currently only has 0.1 per cent of housing stock in the hands of institutional PRS investors, according to Bartek. Savills estimates that institutional PRS accounts for about a fifth of Dublin's 125,000 stock of rental units. [ Rent changes: How will tenants be impacted by the plans for Ireland's rental market? Opens in new window ] PwC estimated in a recent overview of the Polish PRS market that institutional rental stock grew by 32 per cent in the last year alone to about 20,000 units. It forecasts the market to quadruple from this to over 80,000 units by 2028. According to Eurostat data, Poland has an overcrowding rate – where homes lack enough rooms for the number of people in the household – of nearly 37 per cent, compared with the EU average of 17.5 per cent. Much of the housing stock is communist-era flats, often prefabricated, that are badly in need of modernisation. Unlike Ireland and a number of other European markets, Poland does not have legal limits on rent increases. Will rent reform make building apartments viable? Listen | 40:12 Following a wave of PRS investment in the Irish market between 2016 and 2022, led by international investors, development has fallen dramatically as a result of a spike in interest rates and tightening of rent controls during the pandemic in rent pressure zones (RPZ), according to industry observers. Currently, rent increases in RPZ areas cannot be greater than the rate of inflation or 2 per cent – whichever is lower. Under the planned new national rent control system announced this week – which is set to fully kick in from March 2026 – rent increases for tenancies would be capped in most cases by inflation or a maximum cap of 2 per cent similar to the current RPZ system. However, rent control for new apartment blocks would be tied to inflation even when this exceeds 2 per cent as part of efforts to encourage their construction. A number of property figures have said that the planned new measures will not boost development.
RTÉ News
05-05-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
When is a two-pointer not a two-pointer? - FRC member Eamonn Fitzmaurice explains
When is a two-pointer not a two-pointer? The new rules in Gaelic Football are continuing to spark debate. And they were again highlighted at the weekend following the awarding of one point instead of two when Galway goalkeeper Conor Gleeson helped the ball over the bar, taking advantage of the rule. Former Kerry manager and current FRC member Eamonn Fitzmaurice spoke about the incident on the RTE GAA Podcast and offered his opinion, while also explaining the thinking behind the rule. "There is a lot you can say about the incident," said Fitzmaurice. "It was a significant incident at that time of the game, the flow of the game, and everything else. "You have to give huge credit to Conor Gleeson to get a touch on it, Stephen Cluxton did something similar in Portlaoise last weekend when he got a touch on one of the long Meath two pointers. "I didn't think it was as conclusive as some people are saying, it did look like it was all the way over the bar, when Glesson managed to get a touch on it, so it should have been two in that case, and that's an officiating mistake." Fitmaurice said that the rule did cause much debate when it came to predicting the scenarios that could arise from such a situation, which was really aimed at taking the uncertainty out of the situation and making it easier for the officials. "The rationale is that we did debate around this particular one and it was trying to write a rule in terms of how far out do you allow a touch?" added Fitmaurice. "If it comes in and a full-forward and full-back are competing for it and it is added to, is that still at two-pointer. And we debated if it was just the full back, it can stay as the two-pointer, and it could be [a question as to] who got a touch on it. "So it was to try to make it as clean as possible from an officiating perspective. "We saw yesterday what can happen in that situation and I know there was commentary around you'd hate to see that being a deciding factor in a game, especially in the knock-out games in the championshop "And from the FRC perspective, when anything like that happens, we are discussing it, seeing if it is something that we need to consider. "To me if someone kicks from outside the arc and the full forward touches it before it hit the ground, it becomes a one-pointer, but how do you decide how significant a touch, so that was the rationale."
