Sport for Business

Leopardstown’s Next Chapter

• Rob Hartnett, Paul Dermody • Episode 153

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A rare thing in a capital city: a marquee sporting venue that grows with the community rather than giving way to it. We sit down at Leopardstown Racecourse with Paul Dermody, CEO of Horse Racing Ireland’s racecourses division, to unpack how Dublin’s only racecourse secured its future while unlocking land for 850–1,000 social and affordable homes. The story begins with a proactive masterplan, gathers momentum through the Housing for All strategy, and lands on a precise 17-acre parcel beside the Luas and M50—meeting housing goals without sacrificing a world-class track.

We explore the legal and planning foundations that made it possible, from Schedule II protections to Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown’s development plans that call out Leopardstown’s role in community, tourism, and enterprise. Then we move into what the campus can become: safer horse-walk routes, expanded capacity beyond the current 18,500 cap, upgraded owners’ and trainers’ facilities, and a more open, permeable site. Think greenways and cycleways that link Sandyford and local schools, seven-day social spaces that invite people beyond race days, and long-discussed infrastructure finally activated—an existing but unopened Luas platform, plus a proposed M50 bridge to ease access.

We also talk timelines and market appetite. Short-term improvements will be visible within 18–24 months. Pre-market consultations will test operators’ interest in hotels, arenas, and conference venues, feeding a sustainable financial model for the campus. Planning for major builds is targeted from 2027, while the LDA aims to break ground around 2030, reflecting the real-world pace of utilities and permissions. Through it all, the vision stays clear: protect the green heart, keep elite racing in the capital, and create a vibrant hub where Dubliners can work, play, and gather.

If you care about the future of sport, city growth, and smart public land use, this conversation is a must. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves racing or urban planning, and leave a quick review to help more listeners find us.



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SPEAKER_01:

Between her and putting our little nation on the map, it's just you know this is the stuff of of dreams.

SPEAKER_02:

Hello and welcome to the Sport for Business Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Hartnett, and today we are up in Leopardstown Race Course, not for the Dublin Racing Festival, but to talk to Paul Dermady, who is the CEO of Horse Racing Ireland's Racecourses division, about the future of Dublin's only race course. It is a secure future. We'll get that out of the way first of all, but it is one where there is going to be development of social and affordable housing as part of a deal with the land agency and the growth of additional sporting opportunities, social opportunities, and social opportunities as well on an area of land which is incredibly central, incredibly well located, and which is very much central to the way in which sport in that part of Dublin is both seen, enjoyed, and experienced. So I'm here now looking out over Leopardstown Race Course with Paul Dermoty, CEO of the Horse Racing Ireland Race Courses Division and master of all that we survey at the moment. Paint me a picture of what Leopardstown is going to look like now in a few years' time. But before we get to that, let's just rewind a little bit. And can you explain to me and to our listeners what the journey has been with the land development agency to actually create space whereby Leopardstown will be forever a sporting venue and forever a racing venue?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it can indeed. So Leopard Center Race Course is the only race course left in the capital city. It's 260 acres in Fox Rock. We're very conscious of the fact that it has an incredible history. We have done parcels of that for parcels of the campus. So in 2021, I said about that exact process, a master plan for the 260 acres that would protect and grow racing at a tart, but look at utilizing the full campus as well. Not long after starting that process, uh along came our friends in the LDA. The Housing for All Strategy was launched by government, the LDA Act was enacted by government, and the LDA came along with a very understandable uh objective of finding uh uh space for social and affordable homes. That Housing for All Strategy uh identified 84 sites nationally, of which Lepra Sendrace course was one of them. And the conversation then started around how much of the site could be allocated to uh to housing. We are a commercial semi-state, we have to be seen to be playing our part in the housing crisis. So we actively engaged with the LEA from that point to say, where can we get to a win-win where we can be seen to be delivering for the for government, but also protecting the future of the race course. So after three or four years of protracted uh discussions and negotiations, we got to a point where we could demonstrate to government that there was a parcel of 17 acres on the southern end of the race course that could generate sorry, that could um be the the the site for between 850 and a thousand homes. But the crucial bit for us was that in facilitating that sale to the LDA, we needed certainty that the rest of the site could be retained and controlled uh by Leopardstown for the future benefit of the sport in the industry.

SPEAKER_02:

Was there a danger at any point when the LDA was was initially formed that Horse Racing Ireland in the wider context might have come under pressure to actually say, well, look, Leopardstown is there, it's right in the heart of Dublin, it's inside the M50, just about. As horse racing as as a sport, as an entity, as a commercial, semi-state organization, was there ever a danger that the entirety of Leopardstown could have been grabbed?

SPEAKER_00:

I guess there was always that that risk. I mean, we came under savage pressure at different times. We understand the pressure government are are under to create new sites for social and affordable homes. I suppose what gave us some strong foundations for our argument was that there's a Ballyogan local area plan, there's a Dunleary County Development Plan, both of which call out in very clear terms the need to protect the race course here as part of its community tourism and business and enterprise role. That aligned with the fact that within the LDA Act, every state entity is categorized as a Schedule I or Schedule II. We are Schedule II, which means that there are certain rights that we retained around the control of any sale of our land. So that was a strong part of our argument. I think the biggest part of our argument was that because we had started the master plan 12 months before the LDA came along, we had such a body of work done with engineers and planners that we could sit down from day one and say, actually, let us show you how you don't need all. You just need the parcel that we ended up selling them. And you get density there right, you can have uh 17 acres uh achieving 852,000 homes, and it's right on the Lewis line, which crosses our land, and is right at the junction of the M50.

SPEAKER_02:

I think that that's really important to say that that that there wasn't, even though there was a notional threshold that the reality is that the Leopardstown was going to remain racing because some of us are old enough to remember the Phoenix Park as a race course, and now it is a you know substantially high high-density housing development. Um I'm not old enough to remember uh Balt Oil as a race course, but you can still see the footprint up there as to where all that development is, and both of those are gone now. Leprestown will be here. It'll it'll outlive you, it'll outlive me, it'll outlive uh everybody who's listening to this as well. The the sense that um the sense that everybody else is gathered in around it was really important as well. So for those who are familiar with it, what we're talking about is the package of land where you might see the circus tent that's up if you're driving past it on the M50. And it's up to that, but no closer to that. So it doesn't include the reservoir, which is very important from a land maintenance point of view in the race course. It doesn't even include the car parks, which are uh a a commercial driver, but also very much an experienced driver when it comes to the big race days at Clechwoods Town.

SPEAKER_00:

That's exactly it. So if you come in Junction 15 and you you come off the M50 at that point and you turn back on yourself towards the race course, you have uh you have a site on your immediate right-hand side, which is where the that housing will go. Uh the Lewis Line crosses uh our land. Uh interesting fact, it has a platform built from day one, 20 odd years ago. That platform and station has never been built around it. So that's an obvious positive output of this deal with the LDA, is that LDA station that Lewis station will be opened up, um, which will help. There's also talk with Dunleary and Transport Infrastructure Ireland that there'll be a new bridge built across the M50 to access that site as well. So there's some positive infrastructure pieces that will come on the back of this as well. Um but the most important point for us was that we got the certainty from government that the rest of the site could now be we could go forward with a bit of positivity that the new and incremental uh revenue streams that we want to bring here can be achieved while also achieving the LDAPs.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, let's get into that then. So we've done we've done the past all the way up to the present, and that's a very positive story. It's a very healthy story in terms of sport within within Dublin area. What does the future potentially look like?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So Lepracen is obviously famous for for horse racing, uh, and since 1888 we've been racing here. Um probably less well known about Leprosun is the the thriving non-race day uh business that it already has. So we have a golf course and a driving range in the infield. We have uh four paddle courts are opening now in in in two months' time. Uh we have uh two more crooks, golf shops, super social, Westwood, and a whole range of car parking tenants. So it's a very active seven-day week site as it is. The opportunity here is to take it on a step and make sure that there are new or incremental revenue streams that will benefit the community, um, benefit local tourism, uh, create an even better sporting and and and and non-racing hub here in the race course. So with that in mind, we started a public engagement process last Wednesday, where we brought together all the various stakeholders of politicians, uh uh sponsors, tenants, uh local businesses, Stanley for business district, uh and so on. And the industry, of course. And we said, look, now is your opportunity to give us your take as to what is the art of the possible in the future with Leopers in. So with the industry, obviously the focus was on well, what could it mean for me as a trainer, an owner, a jockey, stable staff. And that will certainly move into more focused uh workshops and focus groups with those people to make sure that we build in their needs. But then with the non-industry, so the local residents, uh uh business community, sporting clubs, it's about what they would like to see happen here. One thing that came out of it was that there's a great connection already. The ask would be that we look at how we uh develop further access and um permeability into the site. So we have this huge South County business park on our doorstep, we have schools, uh, we have gyms, we have plenty going on. Probably isn't right now enough in terms of uh greenways, cycleways, walkways, um seven-day week coffee or restaurant areas and so on. That could be something we could look to do to maybe uh break down the walls of the enclosure here and and feed into that.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. Very exciting. The consultation period which we're in now runs until the end of March, is it? End of March, yeah. Okay. And what way would people who are listening to this who would have a view now, what way can they contribute into that consultation?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well look, we would we would love to have as much input as possible. So we have a survey up on our uh website, we have a QR code available to download across all our social media channels, and that'll bring you to a short survey. And one of the questions there would be, you know, how you know, asking how you'd like to get involved further, and and we would be in contact with those that that that do put their hand up, uh, which will be uh hugely appreciated. Um parallel to that, and given the you know the extensive timelines it take it takes to to to bring forward um developments, we're also gonna go out to the market with a couple of um pre-market consultations um before we go and tender for particular pieces of business. So uh we already know that there's going to be an appetite, or there's been a suggestion that there's an appetite in the market for things like hotels or arenas or um conference and event space. So we feel the best way to kind of uh uh understand that appetite is go out to market in a very public way through the tender process to say this is the extent of the site. Let's be having you in terms of your appetite for a hotel, for example. Where would you have it? What what kind of star hotel would it be? What's the the ownership model that you you would expect? And then we would move through that process with the interested parties. We'll have done all the work in the background in terms of where that could be cited and all those kind of conversations. And that will all feed into the financial model that will support the whole whole campus.

SPEAKER_02:

And I know I'm not going to I'm not going to pin you to any developments which might arise out of this because obviously that's what the consultation is there for. It's to it's to spark that creative thinking as to what it might look like. But in terms of a timetable, we're here now in the early part of 2026. What's the realistic prospect of having a transformed Leopardstown campus, which might have a concert hall, or it might have a hotel or two hotels or a cycling greenway on it. Where what are we realistically looking at? Is that 2030? Is it 2035, or is it just too early to say?

SPEAKER_00:

So I probably answered in two ways. So the board uh of HRI were very uh adamant that a lot of what we're talking about in terms of new or incremental uh land uses could be quite a bit down the road by the time you get through development and and uh all the various different processes. So I'll I'll come to that bit in the second part of the answer. But in the short term, the board was very clear that they wanted to see demonstrable change and evolution of the facilities for racing in the shorter term. So what we've kicked into immediately, and we will do as part of the feedback we're gonna get from the from the stakeholders, is what could the evolution of racing in the heartland of the enclosure look like? What's that change gonna look like? How do we get beyond our capacity constraints, number one? So we have a capacity constraint and the number of people who can be here, which is capped at 18,500. We don't feel that that's enough. So we're gonna have to find new capacity uh within the enclosure. We know that from an owners and trainers perspective, we're probably under pressure with certain facilities like uh our owners and trainers' lounge facilities being under pressure on our key days. Or from an equine welfare perspective, you know, the evolution of the horsewalk through uh through the through the site from stable yard to parade ring and back to the race course. Those things will be addressed in the immediate short term. I would like to think that, you know, over the course of the next 18 months, two years, you will see that come through very clearly when you come here as a race goer. The second part of the answer then is the new stuff, let's call it. Um that will depend on uh the planning processes that we will go through. I would like to think that we'll be applying for uh planning for those kind of items in 2027 in conjunction with uh Dun Lyra Down and on all the usual channels. Um the LDA, we we we expect to break ground on their residential piece in 2030. That's not a that's not a uh a process we will be overly involved in, but it just shows you the complexity of entitlement they now have to face. They've they've come to an agreement on the land uh acquisition, but we're now in 2026 and they expect to be breaking ground in 2030. So you won't see a change in that in the short term.

SPEAKER_02:

Aaron Ross Powell And we know we've heard the stories about the challenges of water and waste and power and all of those things that lie underneath the ground, but upon which development can't uh can't actually rest. Um I mean the scale of it as a as a parcel of land is is incredible. I mean, we've seen how the Aviva Stadium kind of grew up afresh 15 years ago now into being a stadium it's in today. Um we've seen how Crow Park developed as well. You could fit a dozen Crow Parks and a dozen Aviva Stadiums to boot into the land space that's available here at Leopoldstown. So it is a really exciting prospect. Incredibly exciting that it's it's retained for sport.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

How that sport might look at the moment, it's it's golf and horse racing. Horse racing will be guaranteed. Uh the golf is guaranteed as well. It's one of the most successful driving ranges, as I understand, in Europe, never mind, in in in Dublin. And we've got paddle and we've got tennis and we've got gyms and swimming pools and everything else that are there at the moment. Um, brilliant facility for the people of South Dublin, brilliant facility for people of Ireland and for the sport of racing. Um, very exciting times.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it is. If you go up the Dublin Mountains uh and you look down, you can see that that green space uh in front of you. And we're very proud of that. We need to protect it. Uh, and and that's why we've gone through this process because we think there's more to be done around that sporting and business hub that we have created, there's more scope in it. Um we know from talking to our neighbours in in Sandyford and other areas that there's a there's a demand there for us to step into that. Uh and we'd like to think that through working with Dunleary Ratdown, in particular as a local authority, that we'll get the support we need uh when we come to the table with our planning permissions.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. A lot of work done, a lot of work still to do. Yeah. And the very best of luck in in bringing it to life and uh and with with everything else that's uh that's on your plate. Um yeah, thanks very much. Paul Domini, a pleasure talking to you. Thank you. That is sport and business and the essence of it. Because Leopardstown is, of course, uh world-renowned and nationally very important race course, but it is also so much more than that as well, one of the uh most popular crackman establishments for the golfing uh Cognacenti out there on the driving range in the middle of the course, and with the sports social uh set up now as part of the the campus as well. It's a fascinating story, which is just getting started. It was 1971 when the main part of the infrastructure that we recognise today as being the main grandstand was created. But ever since then there's been constant development, redevelopment, change, and it's brilliant to hear that there is going to be more of it now, and substantially more of it as well, with great opportunity to put in the sporting and social infrastructure that is needed in the area and which will make it a really, really good place to live, to work, and to play in years to come. So thanks very much to Paul Downey for sharing that story. We uh publish stories similar to this every day on sportforbusiness.com. Please do join us there if you're interested in the commercial world of sport. We also put on lots of events. We have a list of events that are coming up, including uh League of Ireland breakfast at the offices of Graham Thornton, which is taking place in the morning of February the 4th, and a round table for Sport for Business members looking at the importance of Belfast's position as the European city of culture for 2026. Plenty more as well on creativity, on sport for social good, and many different areas. So, sportforbusiness.com if you want to dive any deeper into that. We will be back with the Sport for Business podcast uh coming to a set of earphones near you very soon. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcast from. Thanks very much for taking the time to listen in today.

SPEAKER_01:

It's just, you know, this is the stuff of dreams on the line.

SPEAKER_03:

It's being speaking,

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Rob Hartnett

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