Brian O'Shea
Question:50 Mr. O'Shea asked the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation the projected cost of all elements of the stadium-campus Ireland project at the latest date for which figures are available. [12071/01]
Priority Questions. - National Sports Stadium.
The cost of the stadium outlined in the original PricewaterhouseCoopers feasibility study is £230 million. The study also gave an initial guideline cost of £51 million for a campus of sporting excellence. As I explained in the House on 31 January and again on 6 March last, Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Limited, which has responsibility for overseeing the planning and development of the project, on the basis of further work carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers and professional estimates of the cost of the commercial facilities planned, now estimates the cost of the campus excluding the stadium at £320 million, giving a total estimated cost of £550 million. Because CSID has decided to put the project to the market on a public private partnership type of approach, it estimates that the private sector will be prepared to invest £150 million in the project, mostly for the commercial facilities. When the private donation of £50 million is taken into account, the cost to the Exchequer of sports campus Ireland including stadium Ireland is estimated at £350 million.
The Government has today decided that to assist it in determining final Exchequer allocations for stadium and sports campus Ireland, and the sensitivity of such allocations to variations in the scale of each element of the project, I will commission independent consultants to review the overall approach and contracting strategy adopted to date in securing the development of stadium and sports campus Ireland and associated infrastructure, with regard to risk identification, management processes and structures, timing and overall cost effectiveness; advise on CSID, the contract awarding authority's, considered assessment of the gross cost range and Exchequer funding requirements for each facility proposed for the campus emerging from the outline bid phase due for completion on 21 June, of the tendering process now under way; advise on CSID's assessment at the end of the outline bid process of operating costs and revenues likely to be associated with stadium and sports campus Ireland and the likely net impact on the Exchequer; assess estimated costs of relocating existing facilities from the Abbotstown site arising directly from the decision to establish stadium and sports campus Ireland; assess the estimated costs of access infrastructure directly attributable to the development of sports campus Ireland; establish the extent and timing of the likely Exchequer liability associated with the above developments; ascertain the direct and indirect benefits from the developments outlined above, including the impact of physical development and access on the hinterland of Abbotstown and the Dublin region, including the positive impact of infrastructural development, and make recommendations to the Minister as appropriate in the context of the overall purpose of the review.
The consultants will liaise with and be guided by a steering group to be established and will be required to deliver their report not later than three months after the date of commissioning.
I compliment the Minister on at last responding to a question I tabled recently and bringing in experts to look at the whole project and all its connotations. In terms of the figure of £550 million which the Minister has given, what provision is made for construction inflation, which ran at 12.5% last year, given that, according to the latest list from the Government, the stadium Ireland Bill will not be ready until the end of the year? The Minister has not so far addressed the question of whether the value of the site at Abbotstown is being factored in. If it is not, why not?
The cost of the stadium will be in the region of £350 million. The Deputy is a man of reasonable intelligence and knows that one can arrive at the determinate cost of any project only when the tender documents arrive. They are expected on 21 June. They were to arrive on 31 May, but the bidders wanted an extra three weeks which we granted because of the delays caused by the debate about who would be in the stadium and so on. The documents will arrive on 21 June. Only then will we be able to estimate what the cost of the stadium will be. The cost of the millennium stadium in Cardiff was £171 million. The cost of this stadium is estimated at £230 million. Within this figure there is a £50 million contingency plan for various increases in price. The PricewaterhouseCoopers estimate we have was obtained approximately two years ago. I accept that there may be price increases. However, it seems not to be fully understood that 15 different consortia wanted to build the stadium. We are now down to six or, in reality, five. An international assessment board will assess the six existing projects and come up with three proposals which will be brought to Cabinet which will make a decision as to which will go ahead. There are ten elements to the stadium, in addition to the stadium itself.
The Minister has not answered the question.
Only at that stage will we be able to determine the overall costs. The cost of the stadium is £350 million.
The Minister did not answer the question regarding the cost of the land.