John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

Last autumn, the Government decided to proceed with the redevelopment of the Abbey Theatre at George's Dock on a build, finance, and maintain, BFM, basis. At the same time, I announced the holding of an international design competition for the new Abbey Theatre, details of which have yet to be published. The OPW is currently working on the detailed technical specifications for the competition and these will be available to interested parties when finalised and the competition has been formally published. A competition of this nature is a complex one and takes time to perfect. An added complexity to be addressed is the handover of the winning design to the winning public-private partnership, PPP. This must also be addressed in the competition documentation.

A jury is being set up to select the winning design. The jury will comprise representatives from the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, the OPW, the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, the Arts Council and the Abbey Theatre. When a winning design has been selected the building will be procured by means of a build, finance and maintain public private partnership. A construction phase of approximately 18 months is envisaged once the PPP contract has been signed.

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