The DDDA, The Poolbeg Peninsula and the Minister – We need answers
Lucinda today called on the Minister for the Environment to postpone the Poolbeg Planning Scheme to allow time to review the operations of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority and to clear up the ongoing issues with revolving Chairpersons, strange dealings with the Irish Glass Bottle Site, and relationships with Anglo-Irish Bank. She raised the matter in the Dáil:
MOTION: I wish to raise on the adjournment the urgent need for the Minister for the Environment to delay the Poolbeg Planning Scheme Section 25 process, given recent revelations in the financial sector, to allow time for the commercial, financial and legal relationships between the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, Becbay Ltd, Anglo-Irish Bank and certain developers to be clarified.
I thank the Minister of State at the Department of Transport for coming to the House to deal with these matters. I am disappointed, however, that the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has neither attended here whenever this matter has been raised, nor in his constituency when local meetings have been held over recent months. It shows a certain amount of contempt for the people who elected him but I suppose I would say that.
There is an urgent need for the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to at the minimum postpone the section 25 process for the Dublin Docklands Development Authority’s proposed planning scheme for the Poolbeg peninsula. It has raised ethical concerns about banks, commercial interests, developers and the authority and the complex web of relationships between these individuals and corporate entitities. This is a significant scheme which will have a profound effect on people not only in the Sandymount and Ringsend area but in the city. There has been no provision for transport and other infrastructure to support this massive scheme.
The premise of the scheme is worrying. It will allow the Dublin Docklands Development Authority become its own planning authority for a vast tract of land which is an important public amenity. Anyone who lives in Dublin city probably uses or has used it. It is also an area of significant flooding that affects the canal, the Dodder, Tolka and Liffey rivers.
This is not merely a local issue but is very much a city-wide one. It is also a matter of national concern, for a number of reasons that I will outline, briefly.
Three fiascos are currently connected to the Dublin Docklands Development Authority. One is the Becbay investment scheme in the Irish Glass Bottle site, a greatly questionable endeavour involving a number of people. The CEO of the authority until last month, Mr. Paul Moloney, stated that no interest has been paid since last June on the loan of almost €300 million put forward to purchase the IGB site. This raises a very significant question with regard to the solvency of the DDDA and Deputy Phil Hogan raised the matter at the relevant Oireachtas committee. There are major concerns among the public and they have not been answered by the Minister. The matter has not been dealt with and we have not had any meaningful clarification.
Let us bear in mind that the Dublin Docklands Development Authority was established by my very fine constituency colleague, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, the former Minister of Finance in the Fine Gael-led Rainbow Government of 1994-97. It was done as part of a rejuvenation scheme for the city centre, based on commercial intent but also to offer a very important social dimension for the area. What has been happening in the DDDA over the past number of years has deviated so far from those original objectives that serious questions must now be answered.
There is the issue of the newly appointed chairman of the DDDA, Mr. McCaughey, who was appointed by the same Minister, Deputy John Gormley. Mr. McCaughey was forced to resign in recent days as a result of what can only be described as very questionable behaviour with regard to his paying taxes. This raises significant question marks over the judgment of the Minister and questions much of a handle he really has on what is going on in the various authorities under his ministry, particularly the DDDA.
There is the very important issue of the links between the recently nationalised Anglo Irish Bank and the DDDA. Two directors of the authority were directors of Anglo Irish Bank at the time of the Becbay deal, a very serious conflict of interest. According to the DDDA’s last annual report, it paid €964, 648 to companies that had direct links with three of its directors. One such was Arup Consulting, one of whose directors was a member of the DDDA board; another relates to PricewaterhouseCoopers; and we are very much aware of the Anglo Irish Bank connections. These are major questions of public interest and the Minister, Deputy Gormley, must get to the bottom of them before he gives any sanction to, or stands over the going ahead of this project.
In any case, this project is not viable because it is proposed on the basis of completely flawed planning grounds and fanciful transport plans that will never happen. Already we have had two matters raised on the Adjournment with regard to transport plans that will not happen under Transport 21.
These plans are not even contained in that. There is a Luas line that will never be built. We need answers and I am sorry that the Minister is not here to give them.
