Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is in a state of dereliction. There has been ongoing toing and froing between Dublin City Council, the Department and the developer. The thing is a fiasco, quite frankly. With a little over a year to go to the moment of commemoration, it is quite disgraceful that it has come to this pass. I realise the Minister of State may be limited in the nature of his commentary overall. However, I call on him to set out the role of the OPW in this as well as anything he may be able to do by way of finding a solution. To my mind, any solution requires entirely new planning permission as well as a new concept for Moore Street and the historic buildings.

I note that under subhead B8 the Department is paying more than €86 million in rent. Has there been a value-for-money audit in respect of this area? I know the Department is holding substantial leases. Are there plans to surrender more of them? It is a substantial budget.

I am keen to raise the issue of the National Convention Centre as well. The Minister of State will be aware that the Comptroller and Auditor General issued a rather damning report on that project. He found that the high cost of the project would outweigh its public benefit over the next century. Obviously, he wrote that when we were approaching the new century. Anyway, it is rather shocking. In fairness to the Minister of State, the unitary payments have been scaled down, but they are still very substantial. Fáilte Ireland reckons the potential benefit of the Conference Centre to the economy over the 25-year period when the payments are being made will be somewhere in the region of €170 to €255 million, well short of the investment by the State. The point is that in 2010, on foot of this fiasco, the Comptroller recommended changes in terms of how bids are evaluated in future. Can the Minister of State indicate whether those proposals have been taken on board? Have those recommendations been implemented?

By the way, on the issue of heritage services, I call on the Minister of State to tell me he had nothing to do with the 1916 video or that website fiasco.