This article is from page 20 of the 2009-12-29 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 20 JPG
IRELAND now looks likely to be wiped off the map of “The World’ following the collapse of Ennis-based consortium Larionovo last year.
Dubbed “The World’, the develop- ment is believed to be the largest ever building project undertaken in the modern era. It consists of more than 300 man-made islands off the coast of Dubai in the United Arab Emir- ates and was designed to be a scale model of the Earth, filled with hotels and tourists attractions.
The Ireland island on the world was bought by Larionovo for €28 million in 2007. The island was meant to feature a marina, a hotel, apartments and villas along with an Irish-themed pub and a recreation of the Giant’s Causeway.
With the Ennis-based company in liquidation for more than a year, and a group of investors mounting a legal challenge to recoup their money, it is unlikely that any progress will be made on the mini-Ireland for some time if at all.
However, it now looks likely that as a result of the recent upturn in the global economy the rest of “The World’ is going to move on without Ireland.
Development company Nakheel says that it has finished the first phase of the project as planned, meaning all the islands themselves are com- plete. They also say that 70 per cent of the projects islands have been sold
and a number of island are to be de- veloped in 2010.
A spokesman for the development company claims that it is “looking forward to the commencement of construction by owners on several islands next year” – with Germany
believed to be one of the islands to be developed in 2010.
According to Nakheel, more than 33 islands have been handed over to developers as of December of 2009.
‘Some foreign media have a wrong perception of such a _ long-term
project,’ said a Nakheel spokesper- son, who estimated that the entire project could be finished as soon as 2015.
The World islands are composed mainly of sand dredged from Dubai’s shallow coastal waters and are one of
several artificial island developments in Dubai. The population of Dubai has exploded from just 20,000 peo- ple in 1954 to an estimated 1.7 mil- lion today.