Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 26 June 2013

Public Accounts Committee

Special Report No. 77 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Dublin Docklands Development Authority (Resumed)

3:30 pm

Mr. Lar Bradshaw:

I am sorry. Paul Coulson was the chairman of Ardagh, a company involved in glass manufacturing. At some point – do not ask me when, but I am sure people can check it – the company was split into two companies; one a glass company and the other effectively a company called South Wharf and all it had was this asset, its tenancy in this asset.

He rang me in late summer 2005 and said to me that all trust had broken down between South Wharf and the Dublin Port & Docks Board. He asked me, as chairman of the authority and someone who would clearly have a desire that the impasse would be broken between the two parties and the land would be developed, if I would mediate between both parties as the chairman of the authority. During the telephone call he also informed me of the legal loophole. Is everyone familiar with it?