Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I wish to share time with Deputies James Reilly and Fergus O'Dowd.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for affording an opportunity in Private Members' time to move this Bill, the purpose of which is to give the Comptroller and Auditor General the power to audit the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, DDDA. The legislation is necessary in light of the exposure of bad practice, lack of corporate governance and financial impropriety which has taken place in the authority for much too long. The important task of regeneration cannot be endangered by reckless financial management of a planning and development authority of the State.

The Dublin Docklands Development Authority was established as a State body with a commercial remit. It is interesting that the commercial aspect of its remit appears to have become secondary to the intrigue and bad practice that have taken place in recent years.

Seven o'clock on the night before the most brutal budget in the history of the State is not a great time to register the full scandal of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority. I am sure those who managed the authority into disgrace and insolvency are relying on that fact, hoping that it will be forgotten about as the nation tries to cope with the more personal pain tomorrow's budget will inflict. I assure the House that, as Fine Gael Party spokesman on the environment, the people responsible for the activities and bad management that have taken in the Dublin Docklands Development Authority will be brought to book. I will not allow them to hide behind circumstances, conceal their malfeasance behind complexity or take refuge behind the good work the authority has done in the area of social regeneration, education and community development.

What my colleague, Deputy Leo Varadkar, revealed in respect of FÁS was monumental irresponsibility and spending without objective. The indications are that a similar approach was taken in the Dublin Docklands Development Authority. Management in FÁS was so focused on its supposed entitlement to first class global travel that it failed to pay attention to the failure of the agency to deliver on its mandate. What we see in the Dublin Docklands Development Authority is arguably worse. A dream was destroyed as the property development arm of the authority went out of control. This dream was to take a chunk of derelict Dublin, revive and reinterpret it and turn it into a world class riverside amenity and business district which would attract people back into the city and create employment, educational possibilities and a new skyline for the city. The dream turned into a nightmare as it was sacrificed to the irrational greed of a few developers and financiers who regarded the Dublin Docklands Development Authority as the ultimate soft touch, which it proved to be.

Depending on one's point of view, the best or worst example of how the Dublin Docklands Development Authority went completely off the rails was its involvement in the Irish Glass Bottle site in the Poolbeg Peninsula. The authority entered a partnership with two private property developers, Mr. Bernard McNamara and Mr. Derek Quinlan, to form a joint venture company to purchase the Irish Glass Bottle site. We have learned from documents I sourced using the Freedom of Information Act that in October 2006 the chief executive of the DDDA informed his board that Mr. Bernard McNamara was about to make a bid for the Irish Glass Bottle site in Poolbeg. Mr. McNamara said he would be happy to accept the DDDA as joint venture partner. Why would he not be happy given that it was the local planning authority of the area? This version of events is disputed in the courts by Mr. McNamara who alleges that Mr. Paul Moloney, the then chief executive of the authority, approached him. Why would Mr. Moloney make such an approach? The only conclusion I can reach is that he did so at the suggestion of members of the board who had a vested interest in the matter or because he wanted to play with the big boys and did not want to be left out during a period when many people were making gains from the Celtic tiger.

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