Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

Their mantra is, "We will not, we will not, we will not pay it back or be accountable". There will be a situation in which the Dublin Docklands Development Authority and its debts will be written off and will go down the tubes. It will be a very sad day for anyone in the Houses of the Oireachtas to have to report this for an organisation established with the noble objectives of reviving and regenerating an area of the city that needed it. All we have witnessed is the big boys with their vested interests getting away scot free with taxpayers' money. I call on the Minister to change this and to give a solemn commitment to the House that this will not take place. The Dublin Docklands Development Authority was so attractive to developers because, apart from the soft loans available, it had access to planning permission.

There is, of course, the small matter of €5.5 million of expenditure on lawyers by the DDDA. I note a significant increase in legal expenses in recent years in the accounts, especially from 2005 onwards. The reasons for that have never been explained. Perhaps the Minister can explain the legal and other expenses that have accrued into massive amounts that shot up exponentially in recent years to a far greater extent than should have been the case. There must be a reason for that. In addition, litigation must be taking place behind the scenes that has not been held to account by this House. That expenditure resulted from people going to court who did not get planning permission or promises of securement fulfilled.

I understand Mr. McNamara is going to court tomorrow to resume his case against the Dublin Docklands Development Authority. The Davy nominees are going to court with Mr. McNamara. I have come to the conclusion that it is a case either of thieves falling out with each other over the manner in which the docklands area was ravaged, with the taxpayer picking up the tab, or there are genuine reasons for people going to court in order to get their legitimate agreements enforced. This issue smells. As I described it last week, it is a financial septic tank at this stage. Unfortunately, the players are bringing the entire area of financial probity into disrepute. I do not wish the Minister to be part of that.

Davy's is suing Mr. McNamara because of the guarantees that were given by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority. Anglo Irish Bank and AIB provided the bulk of the funding for the Irish Glass Bottle site. Anglo Irish Bank, whose board members included Mr. FitzPatrick and Mr. Bradshaw, was on the board of the authority until April 2007. The former CEO was always pointing out that the Dublin Docklands Development Authority was no charge on the taxpayer. That was what we thought until we received the 2008 annual report, which was presented last week, and we learned of a €27 million black hole in the accounts. Let us be in no doubt, every cent of that money will be a cost to the State and to the taxpayer. I want people to be held to account.

It is also interesting that the majority of debt from the State body is owed to another State body, Anglo Irish Bank, which will soon transfer the bad debts onto another State body, the National Asset Management Agency. That has been the legacy of poor governance, especially under Fianna Fáil, a circle of bad debt all owned by the Government and paid off by the taxpayer.

Let us park all that bad news for a moment and move on to other news. One of the best bits of news was the appointment of Professor Brennan as chairman of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority. I support her appointment fully. As a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, I had the opportunity, along with other committee members, to question her for more than two hours on her stewardship of the authority to date. She should be given every support by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the Department, whose officials were asleep at the wheel, as the Department was represented on the board of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority. The Minister should be inquiring whether the officials were doing something to bring those matters to the attention of the Minister of the day, and if they were being overruled. I do not believe any official of the Department or of this House would sit on a board where those questionable decisions were being made without bringing the reports to the attention of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government of the day. Perhaps the Minister will indicate whether they were being overruled.

Professor Brennan has given us an opportunity to look behind the scenes on some of the issues that are questionable. I wish to refer to the U2 tower. An architectural competition was held and it was won by a company called BCDH, composed of talented young architects. When Mr. Maloney took over as CEO of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, he also took over the U2 tower project as his own. He hired his old friends from Dublin City Council within a matter of weeks. He visited London on a number of occasions to view comparable towers. He went to the market for a firm of contractors to build the U2 tower. Significantly, the procurement document he crafted stated that when they were putting in their bid, the contractors could, if they wanted, come up with a new design, their own design, for the tower. How much of an inside track did Mr. Seán Mulryan have with the former CEO when his company, Geranger Limited, won the contract?

I also wish to know the sequence of actions the CEO took to redress the situation for the young architects who had legitimately won the contest, and why it ended up in arbitration, costing the Dublin Docklands Development Authority money as well. Who were the Davy stockbrokers that were nominated shareholders on the Irish Glass Bottle site? Professor Brennan could not answer the question the other day, but I would like the Minister to give an assurance that none of the board members of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority was involved as shareholders, stakeholders or property owners of the Irish Glass Bottle site or any other site without declaring an interest.

Those are the issues that confront the Oireachtas tonight and tomorrow when we will vote on the Bill. It is for that reason that Fine Gael is proposing an amendment to the Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act to provide improved auditing and greater accountability in terms of the manner in which that site has been hammered into the ground. I hope the Minister has been listening carefully and that he will be able to reassure me on how those issues were dealt with and that he is prepared to do something about it.

See this speech in context