When the debate was adjourned I was saying that this is a strange little Bill, produced at a very strange time. I invite the House to consider just how strange this Bill is. The Urban Renewal Bill as passed last year provided for the establishment of designated areas in a number of our cities for redevelopment purposes, and specifically, as is the subject of this Bill, for the establishment of the Custom House Dock Development Authority for 27 acres. Now, extraordinarily, before one brick had been laid or one foundation opened, the Minister comes in ostensibly to seek our agreement to the enactment of this legislation to allow him to extend the area.
As I have said, the boundaries to which the area is to be extended are ill-defined, in sharp contrast to the position when the principal Bill was presented to the Oireachtas and when lists of the areas were laid in the Oireachtas Library for the consideration of Members so that they might speak with greater knowledge on what was envisaged. It was always envisaged that the Custom House Dock Development Authority, if successful, would extend the scope of their activities and in time would see to the redevelopment of the entire Dublin dockland area. Though the Minister has said that the primary purpose of the Bill is to provide for the extension of the Custom House Docks area, that is not so.
The Bill has been introduced for one real reason only, that is, as represented by the Minister in a subservient and minor part of the Bill, because the present administration want to increase the size of the board membership from a chairman and four members to a chairman and seven members. What we have presented to us is merely the cloak of the purported desire of the Minister to be able to extend the authority of the Custom House Dock Authority to a wider area for the Minister to achieve his main objective, in section 3, of enlarging the ordinary membership which, together with the chairman, would result in an authority of eight members rather than five.
Even that attempt is rather clumsy because virtually every administration and Minister would attempt to have a board comprising an uneven number whereas the Minister now proposes there will likely be an equality of votes, a situation which is not regarded as particularly desirable.
It is too bad that within months of the Minister taking office he has identified an authority appointed by the previous administration and because he or his party did not have the right to appoint the membership of that authority he has resorted to the device of substantially increasing the membership so as to be able to appoint persons of his choosing. It is very difficult to come to any other conclusion. In explanation of the clause to increase the ordinary membership, the Minister said it was necessary in order "for example, to have persons who have direct experience in the financing and carrying out of large scale development proposals".
Apart from the gratuitous insult thereby paid to some of the existing members of the authority, anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the development scene in Ireland will know that in the existing membership of the Custom House Dock Development Authority there is extraordinary experience and expertise among some of the members in the carrying out of major developments in construction, in the tourist industry and major financing of developments in Dublin, throughout Ireland and abroad. There is in the authority a wealth of civil engineering experience among people who have been principal partners of the main contracting firms in the country. It ill suits the Minister to attempt to represent that the authority do not have expertise among the members. They clearly do. The existing membership were chosen specifically so that that expertise would be available in the activities of the authority.
I regret that the Minister has chosen to represent that the authority have not got particular knowledge or experience. That is the reason why the membership need now, so soon after the authority had been set up, to be increased so substantially. The plain unvarnished truth is that the Minister wants to appoint his own men, and the way in which he has chosen to do that is to introduce legislation ostensibly to allow him the right to extend the area under the control of the authority, which is not opportune at all at present. As the Minister said, the authority in the past week have published planning schemes and invited submissions from potential developers. Already, by the production of this Bill, ostensibly to double or treble the area for redevelopment, potential developers have been left in a state of confusion because they are no longer certain whether they should make proposals regarding the 27 acres or whether the proposals should relate to a wider area and, if so, whether the proposals for the primary section of the site should be different from the position if the site itself would be a contained unit.
It is particularly unfortunate that with the much heralded launch of the planning scheme last week we have, contemporaneously with that launch, the Minister's proposal to extend the area in an easterly direction with no potential easterly boundary as far as I am aware. There are other minor aspects in this regard. I should not have thought it necessary to publish a Bill simply to extend in a southerly direction the area in the control of the Authority, to include the North Wall with a section of the River Liffey. It was a suggestion I made in order that the southerly face of the area would be developed and opened up in an imaginative way so as to provide a picture window into the entire development area of the site.
In that regard I intend to table an amendment on Committee Stage to seek the inclusion of the entire width of the river along the southern boundary of the existing Authority area. It is desirable that if there is to be some kind of marine development in the inner dock that it be allowed to spill out into the river so as to provide an attractive picture of the opening into the site. It would be more beneficial if such development included the entire width of the river rather than using just half its width as has been suggested by the Minister but that is not the primary purpose of the Bill. The primary purpose of the Bill is to play politics with the membership of the Authority.
It is normal practice for one administration to accept the bodies which were put in place by a previous administration and to accept the appointments which were made by a previous administration until such time as the period of appointment comes to an end. Indeed, in many cases, outgoing members are reappointed by the administration of the day. I do not think it could be suggested that the members of the existing Authority were primarily appointed on party political lines as each of them has a particular expertise. Now, for whatever strange reason, the Government have decided that they wish to appoint their own people on to the Custom House Dock Authority and one can only wonder as to the reasons. One cannot deal with statutory bodies in the same way as certain financial institutions might attempt to initiate take-over bids for other institutions. The Minister in introducing this Bill seemed to indicate that that is the type of cavalier approach being adopted in this case.
There were particular reasons as to why the membership of the Custom House Dock Authority was kept to a small number. The Minister of State in introducing the Bill at that time made it clear that he intended that Authority to have an executive rather than a representational function. For that reason he wanted a small tightly knit group who were prepared to devote a good deal of their time and expertise to ensuring that the venture would be a success. Now the Minister, for whatever reason by increasing the membership is defeating much of that purpose and for no useful reason. I want to give notice to the House that I will be tabling amendments to sections 3 and 4 of the Bill on Committee Stage.
The thinking behind section 4 is extraordinary. Normally, when a statutory body is appointed it consists of a chairman and ordinary members and the normal powers, duties and functions of a chairman are set out in the appointing section of the Bill. There is no necessity for section 4 to outline specifiedly that it shall be the duty of the chairman of the Authority to ensure the official discharge of the business of the Authority. That is one of the normal functions of any chairman or acting chairman. It is dangerous that the Minister should suggest that he has had widespread consultation with the chairman of the Authority and is now making a number of suggestions. Each member of the Custom House Dock Authority has a specific responsibility and as I have already said it was the intention of the previous administration that the five member Authority, whose chairman would also act as a full time chief executive, would act in an executive capacity.
It would be regrettable and wrong if the chairman in his dual capacity as both chairman and chief executive felt he had the right to take decisions which later only require the rubber stamp of approval from his colleagues. It is particularly important that where a person acts in the dual role of chairman and chief executive, the other members of the body or organisation have the right to question his decisions and put forward other points of view. If that is not the case it would be more realistic and honest if one person was appointed chairman chief executive and sole decision maker. In this case before a decision can be reached it has to have the approval of a majority of the members of the Authority.
When the Urban Renewal Bill, 1986 was introduced in this House it provided for the establishment of designated areas for tax and special rates and one of the areas designated was the Custom House Docks site. However, the Bill did not deal with the tax concessions which would apply to the designated areas and the reason for that was because it was felt it would be more appropriate if such concessions were outlined in the Finance Bill. Therefore, the boundary of the Custom House Docks site was set out in Part II of Schedule III of the Finance Act, 1986 and in section 41 of the same Act the tax concessions which would apply inside that area were set out.
The Minister purports to have, as his primary purpose, the extension of the boundaries of the existing site in a southerly direction towards the River Liffey and in an easterly direction for an undefined distance. Yet in the 1987 Finance Bill there is no mention of any change in the area to be administered by the Custom House Docks Authority. If the Minister makes an order to extend the size of the Custom House Docks site either to the south or to the east there will be a 27 acre site on which certain tax incentives and rate remissions will apply and an additional site to be brought within the remit of the Authority which presumably will carry the rate concessions proposed in the Bill but which will not carry the tax concessions as no attempt has been made to insert a clause in the Finance Bill to modify the boundaries of the designated area which are set out in Part II of Schedule III of the Finance Act, 1986. Would the Minister explain how the Authority are to be expected to operate in that fashion and why extension clauses are not included in the Finance Bill this year as was the case last year.
I am also disappointed that in this Bill the Minister deals only with one aspect of the 1986 Act, that is, the Custom House Dock Development Authority. I would have thought that he would have taken this opportunity to outline to the House the progress which had been made in encouraging development into each of the designated areas which were set out under the Principal Act — the County Boroughs of Dublin, Waterford, Cork, Limerick and Galway. As it has been found necessary at this early stage to extend the boundaries of the Custom House Docks site perhaps the Minister would indicate to the House whether there is any intention to alter or modify the boundaries of the designated areas in the five county boroughs.
The Minister might also explain, which should be an interesting process, how it is now envisaged that the Authority will develop a larger area — how much larger we do not yet know and perhaps there will be some indication given of that in the reply — when one considers that the funding made available to the Authority in this year for the redevelopment of the 27 acre site was reduced by this administration from the £5 million provided by us in the last Government to £3 million. How is it now envisaged that a larger site will be developed expeditiously and in the manner which apparently is desired on a budget which is reduced by two-fifths from what was regarded as the minimum necessary for the Custom House Dock Authority to develop during this year on the 27 acres.
I also find it rather difficult to accept the bona fides of the Minister in regard to some of the things which he has said regarding the necessity, identified and recognised by everyone, for there to be large-scale redevelopment and regeneration of life and activity in Dublin city centre when the Minister is the same person who has in the last week, announced his intention as from the end of this month to abolish the Dublin Metropolitan Streets Commission, having some months ago removed the funding assigned to them. It does not seem to be a very consistent line for a Minister to suggest that he is so concerned about the redevelopment of Dublin city that he wishes now to extend the boundaries of this particular, unique, designated area for redevelopment having reduced the funding of the Authority charged with doing it and at the same time having abolished an authority which was set up virtually at the same time with the express purpose of redeveloping and bringing back a particular style of life into Dublin city centre.
All of these proposals had a particular purpose; they were all designed in various ways, between the designated area for the redevelopment of Dublin, the Custom House Dock Authority and the Dublin Metropolitan Streets Commission, towards a greater area of Dublin inner city with redevelopment taking place along the quays, up through the northern derelict inner city, on the Custom House Docks site to open up the docklands and assign to them a new usage and at the same time to redevelop the main shopping spine of the capital city which would run through and be contiguous to those areas. It does not seem to be very consistent to hear of the Minister's ostensible commitment to the redevelopment of Dublin docklands when one compares that with the actuality of his actions since becoming Minister for the Environment.
There seems now to be also a representation being made that the primary purpose of the development of the Custom House Dock Authority area is for the setting up and creation of a financial services area. Indeed one of today's newspapers seems to report the chairman of the Custom House Dock Authority as suggesting that that is the primary purpose. That was not at all the primary purpose when the Government of the day turned their minds to the prospect of redeveloping the site under the ownership of the Dublin Port and Docks Board, which site was becoming progressively obsolete over a number of years. That process started in 1981 when my colleague, Deputy O'Brien, was Minister of State in the Department of the Environment and was continued by the Minister's administration in 1982 and had been worked on progressively by Deputy O'Brien over the intervening years, taking the proposal to the stage it is at now.
The prospect and possibility of a financial services centre being established or located within the site is indeed an exciting one which ought to be pursued and hopefully will be successful. However, it would be remiss to think that the entire site is to be primarily one for the provision of a financial services centre. I do not think there is the scale of interest that would involve the redevelopment of the entire site and from what I understand, neither do the Authority. It is important that whatever opportunities are in this area should be availed of and that those who have an interest should be encouraged to locate within the designated area, but the operation of any financial services activity should be one of a range of activities which will need to be carried out and developed virtually contemporaneously if the entire area is to have generated within it the life and the activity and new dawning which have been envisaged by so many people associated with the Custom House Docks site.
I now make a point which I hope the Minister might consider in his examination of the planning scheme which I gather has been submitted to him. It does not seem that the suggested location of the financial services area on the south west boundary of the existing site, that would be on the part of the site most adjacent to the Custom House, is perhaps the ideal location for such an activity, which is primarily an activity to be carried out within an office block. In the same way as it is important to develop the southern boundary, the boundary opening out on to the River Liffey, in an imaginative way so as to attract the attention and the interest of passersby and Dubliners to the site and to what it may contain. The south western corner which faces the Custom House and Busarus is vitally important and it is to be hoped that development will open up vistas as to what activities are taking place deep within the site, thus attracting people to enter on to the 27 acres and become aware of retail shopping, commercial usage, hotels, conference centres or whatever else. I am not sure that the heart of the site where the general public will see the range of activities which are occurring is the best possible location for an office block for the proposed financial services area.
I want to emphasise again that it is not that I have any objection or feel that it is not appropriate that financial services should be located on the site, but I do not think that it ought to be represented that the site would be primarily for or substantially taken up by financial service users. I think, regretfully, that it is unlikely that there would be that level of demand. For the reasons I have outlined I feel that the suggested location for a financial services office block is not in the most appropriate part of the site. The other suggestions relating to the establishment of a possible conference centre, hotels and a mixture of commercial, retail and housing have been generally accepted. These proposals were advocated also by the previous administration.
In view of the fact that the Customs House Docks Authority has been in existence for such a short time it is extraordinary that there is a need to introduce a new Bill ostensibly to extend the size of the authority before either the market or the authority has been tested to see to what extent there is a market and what the time scale will be for the development of the 27 acres which has been assigned to the care and responsibility of the authority. It is regrettable that the primary purpose for the introduction of this Bill is to enable the Minister to make his own appointments onto an authority where he did not make appointments in the first place. That is not acceptable. It is not the normal practice which has been engaged in by administrations operating in this country. I do not think the Minister can expect this House to easily accept this without registering a strong complaint.