SEIZED HOUSE `COULD BE USED' FOR TOURISM

The government is being pressed to use the pounds 1.5 million Kerry mansion seized from a notorious Dutch drug-dealer as a tourist resource.

Sneem Development Association official Eileen Burns last night urged that Clashnacree House at Derryquin, which was seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) from Jan Hendrik Ijpelaar, be used to attract tourists.

The contents of Clashnacree House are also likely to prove vastly more valuable than gardai first estimated, as Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) and senior detectives yesterday continued their painstaking search and cataloging of the contents.

It also emerged that Ijpelaar's unsuspecting neighbours included the cream of Irish political and commercial life.

His near neighbour was Emer Haughey whose father, Charles, regularly holidayed at her Sneem cottage, just down the road from Clashnacree.

The circuit around Sneem is regarded as the south-west's ``Beverly Hills,'' with residents over the years including Kerry Group chief executive Denis Brosnan, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, as well as members of the Smurfit family and the late President, Cearbhall O'Dalaigh.

Run-Down

Despite its run-down condition, conservative estimates put the six-bedroom Clashnacree mansion located within sight of Parknasilla and its 20-acre grounds at well over pounds 1 million.

The 53-year-old Rotterdam-born dealer, who served five years of a six-year Dutch drug sentence, bought the Sneem mansion in 1992 for a reported pounds 300,000.

However, he kept to himself for the six months he lived at Clashnacree only dining on a handful of occasions in local restaurants and taking friends to Parknasilla for a drink.

Ijpelaar only returned to Clashnacree for two brief visits following his June 1997 release from a Dutch jail.

Ijpelaar, whose whereabouts are unknown, has until September 9 to appeal the state seizure order and the plans to auction off his house and its contents.