OPW to sell former garda station in Wicklow once legal hurdles cleared

By Hugh O'Farrell Walsh, The Wicklow People

The Office of Public Works (OPW) has confirmed that the former garda station in Hollywood, west Wicklow, will be sold once long-running legal complications are resolved, signalling the first clear movement on the property in more than a decade.

The station, closed in 2013 during the Garda rationalisation programme, has been sitting idle ever since, becoming one of the most persistent examples of how slow and cumbersome the State’s disposal process can be.

A new parliamentary reply now confirms that the OPW has completed all the required checks for alternative State use and is effectively waiting only for legal clearance before preparing the building for open‑market sale.

In response to a question from Wicklow Wexford TD Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin, junior minister Kevin Boxer Moran said the Hollywood station is the only OPW owned vacant property in Wicklow or Wexford.

Deputy Moran confirmed that the OPW has already circulated the station to all relevant government departments, State agencies and Wicklow County Council under the State’s property sharing rules.

Those rules require the OPW to offer any surplus building to other public bodies before it can be sold, giving agencies the chance to claim it for housing, community services or other public uses.

According to the reply, several bodies examined the Hollywood station, but none opted to take it. Departments including Housing, Children, Education and Further Education were given opportunities to assess the building, as were the HSE, the Land Development Agency and the local authority.

The OPW said “an alternative State use has yet to be identified”, confirming that the building has effectively been passed over by every body with potential need for additional space. That clears the main policy barrier to disposal.

Under government rules, the OPW cannot sell a property until it has established “with absolute certainty” that no other State body wants it. With Hollywood, that stage is now complete.

However, the station cannot yet be sold because of what the minister described as “complex title issues” associated with the property. The OPW and the Chief State Solicitor’s Office are currently working to resolve those matters. Until they are settled, the building cannot be transferred, sold or repurposed.

The reply also highlights the scarcity of unused State property in the region. Wicklow has just one vacant OPW building and Wexford has none, underscoring how rare surplus State assets are and how long they can remain idle when disposal processes stall.

After 13 years of vacancy, the OPW has now formally signalled that the station’s future lies outside State ownership once the legal issues are resolved. While no timeline has been given, the building is now at the final stage of the disposal pipeline, with legal clearance the only remaining barrier to the open market.

If that work is completed, the station will be prepared for open market sale, bringing an end to one of Wicklow’s longes-running State property limbo cases.