Premier Inn gets the go-ahead in Outer Dublin
Whitbread PLC, the UK’s leading hospitality group and owner of Premier Inn, has secured a planning grant to build its first hotel in Outer Dublin at Sandyford Business Park, D18.
A 157-bedroom Premier Inn of between five and eight storeys in height, will now be constructed at 5 Arkle Road and will feature the company’s very latest bedroom and ground floor formats.
Whitbread acquired the long-leasehold interest of the site in December 2023 as part of its expansion strategy for Premier Inn in Ireland where it sees the potential for 5,000 hotel rooms across the country.
Matt Gent, Development Manager for Whitbread in Ireland, said:
“We have selected a superb location for our debut in Outer Dublin at Sandyford Business Park. It is a hugely successful business destination, yet it lacks the affordable branded hotel accommodation that Premier Inn provides so well.
“Securing a planning grant to build a new, latest format 157-bedroom Premier Inn hotel at Arkle Road is a huge achievement for the team and another important milestone in the expansion of the Premier Inn across Ireland.”
Whitbread has been growing a network of Premier Inn hotels in Dublin City Centre since the opening of its first central location at South Great Georges Street in November 2021.
It now welcomes its customers to five trading Premier Inn hotels across the city, including a large hotel at Swords near Dublin Airport, and opened its first location outside of the capital in Cork City Centre in 2024.
Alongside further growth in Dublin and Cork, the UK’s largest hotel brand is targeting eleven locations across Ireland with strong leisure and business economies and are likely to experience a growth in visitor numbers.
These include tourist hotspots such as Killarney, Kilkenny, Kinsale, Sligo, Westport and Tralee alongside the larger towns and cities of Galway, Limerick, Waterford, and Wexford.
The Arkle Road site is currently occupied by The Wall Climbing Gym, who have secured and opened a new location in the business park. Notwithstanding this, Whitbread’s team are working with the tenant to keep them trading as long as possible before the start of demolition and construction work in early 2026.
Full details of Premier Inn’s site requirements in Ireland are available at on the property pages of the Whitbread website – www.whitbread.com/property.
