Mr. Lar Bradshaw:

I have speaking notes and other handwritten notes. To be honest, I had anticipated that members would ask me certain questions. All the questions were very fair. I was concerned that conclusions would be drawn too early, but that is clearly not the case. I assumed members would ask me whether I have any regrets. I just want to say that I do. I have a regret that the authority lost money on this. To make that real for me, the biggest regret I have is that there are schools in the docklands that we were going to subsidise by giving land and €6 million to the Department of Education to have them built. That was a primary school for girls and a primary school for boys. That is my deepest regret that the project is not going ahead. That is the real damage of the fact that the authority lost money.

I know this is probably quite naive but a little bit of me hoped that maybe the beneficiaries of that transaction would step into the breach. What we now know with hindsight is that, as has been mentioned, this site is now apparently valued at €45 million, and that meant the Dublin Port Company’s stake, had it held onto it, would be €15 million, and it got a cheque for €138 million. It made a windfall gain of €120 million and a little bit of me had hoped – I know this is naive but I am still going to say it – that it might have seen its way to stepping into the breach to provide the €6 million, which would be only a very small percentage of that gain, and that it would step in to allow the schools to proceed, or that the other beneficiaries, the South Wharf shareholders, might do something. I know that is naive but it needs to be said because the thing that is most difficult about this is that there are children in the docklands who are not getting the educational establishment they should, and that is deeply disappointing to me. I know the reason that has happened is because we made a decision in 2006 that has backfired. That is a fact.

There is one other clarification I wish to make before getting to my concluding statement. I have been told by a number of my oldest friends that they believe from their conversations that the public think that I was a full-time chairman of the authority and that I earned large sums from the State for doing this job. I am grateful that the position has been clarified following questions. I wish to set the record straight on that. When I was asked by the Ministers to do this - this is one of the other issues I had at the start - I explained that I had a full-time job as a director of McKinsey globally and I was a managing partner of McKinsey Ireland. I had two very young children aged two and one at the time and I was genuinely worried that if I took this on, I would not have the wherewithal or the time to devote to it.

They told me the key issue was to get things set up right and confirmed to me that I would be able to undertake a search for a chief executive who was fitting for the new remit and mandate of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, DDDA. As I indicated to members earlier, this is the reason I spent six months, half my time, in that first year, at some considerable personal expense but that is neither here nor there, to build the top management team that would then carry this forward. The truth is that I was part-time once I was over that and I described this to the Deputy earlier. I want to explain that the fees to which I would have been entitled for chairing the authority in 1997 were £16,000 per annum, increasing to £20,000 a couple of years later and then to £24,000. As I already was earning a good salary in my full-time job at McKinsey, I waived those fees and continued to waive them for the next seven and a half years until I retired from my full-time job. I wish to be clear that this in no way changes my accountability to this committee for my actions at the time. This is the reason I did not wish to make this point in my opening statement as I wanted to take questions. However, I wish to put these facts on record to correct a misapprehension that may be abroad among the public.

I wish to conclude with the following comments. I have watched in abject horror and with a feeling of being completely overwhelmed as the narrative of the docklands has evolved over the past five years into a story of a "debacle", a "disaster" and of "dereliction of duty". I have watched in shock as a previous chairman of the authority wrote publicly and spoke publicly about me, my integrity and my motives despite not knowing me and declining the opportunity to meet me. I have watched in disbelief as reports into the docklands overseen by that chairman were written without the authors' interviewing the key individuals involved, including me, and incorrect conclusions being drawn. As for the process in those reports, and I am not referring to the Comptroller and Auditor General, this process defies the most basic tenets of natural justice and was shameful. I have written to the outgoing chairman, John Tierney, at his private e-mail address - he asked me to write to his private e-mail address - requesting that the current board undertake its own independent review of the appropriateness of these reports and the public comments made by that chairman, given the facts, but that request was declined. Despite this, I have spent the past three years giving freely of my time to defend the authority from a lawsuit I considered to be without merit and which, if lost, would have cost the State €100 million. In a previous meeting of this committee a year ago, a member stated everyone knew the authority was going to lose that case but it won the case. I have given freely of my time during those three years and did so unconditionally. Even when I was pleading with John Tierney to get his board to initiate its own independent review, I was making clear that my ongoing assistance over the last few years to the authority for that case, as well as my appearance in court as a key witness for the authority, were unconditional. Even as I was pleading with him to undertake that investigation, I was making the point that whatever he decided to do, I, unconditionally, would continue to do what I was doing and that there was no conditionality in respect of my doing what was right for the State over the past three years.

I have served the State to the absolute best of my ability for ten years between 1997 and 2007, never flinching from trying to achieve the targets we set and never flinching from any difficult decisions. In all that time, I worried every day as to whether we were doing our best and whether we could do better and go faster. While I did not do this to be thanked, in my worst nightmare I never could have imagined the story that is seared into the public consciousness is one that describes the docklands project as a "debacle". On the day we found that our joint bid was successful, everyone thought it was a really good outcome. The State had made a significant profit, the DDDA was going to be able to drive forward regeneration on the last important and strategic site in the docklands and the land was not going to be owned by those who might profit more by doing nothing. I have searched for any parliamentary questions at the time and while I stand to be corrected, there were no dissenting voices and no questions from anyone who was horrified at the price that had been paid by our joint venture. I note media reports and expert opinion at the time suggesting "The site would be the location for one of the last major developments in a string of new city quarters alongside the River Liffey that have had a major impact on Ireland's economic development." It was stated:

Its redevelopment must be seen in terms of creating a new urban quarter in which people can live, work and play... This is a classic brownfield site, whose development would ideally be part of the regeneration of the whole Poolbeg peninsula.

Other comments were made to the effect that, "This site is the gateway into the peninsula and constituted one of the most extraordinary opportunities in the city in terms of access and location."

I do not think the description of the DDDA's participation in this transaction as a debacle is fair. I am thankful for the opportunity to offer my evidence to the committee and to answer members' questions to the best of my ability. I absolutely recognise the importance of the committee's role to pursue the truth and to hold people like me accountable for the decisions we made. This is absolutely as it should be in a functioning democracy. I also recognise the importance of the media to rigorously investigate, pursue and communicate the truth. This also is as it should be. I ask all members to consider everything I have said here today with an open mind. I understand the urge to reach conclusions quickly and I thank members for not doing that. I understand the desire to make the truth simple, even when it is complex, and I understand the human difficulty in changing deeply-held opinions when much has been invested in forming them. Finally, I appreciate the enormous hardship that has been visited on this country over the past five years and the desire for retribution.

Before it reaches conclusions, I ask the committee to invite other people before it, namely, all my board colleagues, my council colleagues, including the community representatives. If the committee wishes to corroborate anything I have said here today, I would be delighted if members saw fit to invite the relevant Ministers with whom I interacted, including the current Ministers for Public Expenditure and Reform and Education and Skills, Deputies Howlin and Quinn, who met me in April 1997 to ask me to do this, as well as former Minister Noel Dempsey, who appointed me for a second five-year term and former Minister Dick Roche, who asked me to serve for a third term.

I also ask the committee to consider trying to find the answers to the following questions, which continue to go around in my head and which I personally believe must be answered in order to get the full story. Why did the Dublin Port Company end up with only one third? Why was the legal loophole not closed? Why did Professor Brennan consider it inappropriate to have our board members, including me, interviewed for her review of the planning and finance functions? Why were we given three working days to respond to the draft reports, numbering more than 200 pages, when they were in her possession for almost three months? Who advised and who decided that this period should be extended after our initial responses and why? Why did she ignore my offer to meet her and why did she not respond to my letter and explain why she was declining to meet me? How did it come to pass that those reports ended up in the public domain before the Minister of the day had published them and were then used to set the narrative that the DDDA was a disaster? Whatever became of the report into the DDDA undertaken by Declan Moylan, chairman of Mason Hayes Curran? Who has seen it and why has it not been published? Why did he feel obliged to write a letter to Professor Brennan, chairperson of the authority at the time, accusing her of trying to interfere and of getting him to change his report, which was supposed to be independent? Lastly, what actually was achieved by the authority during those ten years?

I respectfully ask the committee to think about getting someone independent to do a full audit of all the initiatives, programmes and projects undertaken and sponsored by the authority, as well as someone to measure objectively exactly what was achieved against those metrics against which we agreed all those years ago to measure ourselves. Perhaps someone might undertake a proper corporate governance review to include the most basic question that any corporate governance review should do, which is how the board operates. Perhaps this might include interviewing the key people who were involved and perhaps that might include interviewing me.

I note Professor Brennan has suggested that she attend this committee after everyone else and that the committee has agreed to do this. Given that I believe she has questions to answer, I do not think it appropriate that she appear last. I at least ask the committee for the right for me to write a submission to the committee after her appearance.

I will finish by saying that with the benefit of the facts I now know, I wish we had not decided to pursue this joint venture. I now know the most likely situation and scenario would be that the site would have ended up in State ownership one way or the other. I now know the Government has not been able to use the profits that accrued to the Dublin Port Company for the schools in the docklands. I now know all these things but sadly, then I did not and nor did anyone. In the real world, decisions must be made without the benefit of hindsight. As my father used to say, hindsight is the only exact science known to man. Once the bigger picture is ignored, namely, that the State was on the other side of this transaction and therefore, the taxpayer could not lose, I understand the desire of this committee, the media and many experts to trawl over our actions of the time in order that they can spot the mistake that would have saved us from this.

I acknowledge that one can always do better and do more but I feel obliged to say that I do not believe in practice that any of the issues brought up in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report would have led to a different conclusion.

A very difficult challenge for the committee in evaluating decisions made by others is to retain the distinction between hindsight and foresight and not confuse them. Somebody once said that:

Reality looks much more obvious in hindsight than in foresight. People who experience hindsight bias misapply current hindsight to past foresight. They perceive events that occurred to have been more predictable before the fact than was actually the case.

I think that is a major danger for anyone charged with investigating the past mistakes of others because it will lead to the wrong conclusions and the same mistakes will happen all over again.

One of the things that has baffled me over the past five years is how all the reports that have been released publicly - the two reports that Professor Brennan oversaw, her overall report and the Comptroller and Auditor General's report - could be written and published without anyone interviewing the former chief executive and board members who were there at the time and how the one report that did interview those people lies unpublished and unseen by anybody. I do not understand that and find it odd. Without question, once conclusions are drawn in reports or, as with today's report, concerns are raised but not immediately addressed, it is easy to see how the story can take off in a certain direction. It is for that reason that I am really thankful to the committee for the opportunity to answer its questions today and to try to address the concerns they have raised. I appreciate the integrity of the way it has questioned me today. I have waited almost five years for this moment. I thank the committee.