10 Samh 2011, 16:28
At the PAC meeting today, which examined expenditure on the development of the Sports Campus in Abbotstown, Members were critical of costs of court cases which involved the Development Authority that runs the Campus.
In one case involving a company called Dublin International Arena Limited, which was an unsuccessful bidder for the development of the National Aquatic Centre, legal fees of €600,000 were levied on the tax payer and a settlement of approximately €2.5 million was also met from public funds.
Chairman of the Committee, John Mc Guinness, TD, criticised the fact that the settlement in this case included a confidentiality clause and this prevented the Committee, on behalf of the taxpayer, from examining in greater detail what went wrong with this procurement process.
In the second case involving the Campus, it lost a Supreme Court case in 2010 to Dublin Waterworld on a VAT issue. Papers made available to the Committee suggested that the advice of the Attorney General was ignored. The final costs of this case are as yet unknown.
Deputy McGuinness said: \"We will have a further more extensive examination of the VAT issue as we did not have all the background papers for today’s meeting and the reconvened meeting will also involve the Revenue, the Valuation Office and the National Sports Campus Development Authority.\"
The Committee was also critical of those who drew up the business case for the National Aquatic Centre.
“The Campus Stadium Development Authority as it was at the time surrounded itself with highly paid advisors and in the proposals that were drawn up for the competition to design and build the aquatic centre, these advisors projected that the centre would make a profit of between €500,000 and €2 million per annum. The reality is that the Aquatic Centre requires a subsidy of €1million every year to cover its running costs. These advisors have all left the stage having got well paid for their efforts and the State has no recourse back to them for the poor advice that was given. We did not get satisfactory answers to these questions today and therefore the Committee will have a more extensive investigation shortly,” Deputy Mc Guinness added.
Ends
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Committee of Public Accounts
Membership
John McGuinness (Chairman)
Kieran O’Donnell (Vice Chairman)
Paul J Connaughton,
John Deasy,
Paschal Donohoe,
Anne Ferris,
Simon Harris,
Michael McCarthy,
Mary Lou McDonald,
Michael McGrath,
Eoghan Murphy,
Derek Nolan,
Shane Ross