Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 505: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the reason, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, approval was conveyed on 24 October 2006 for borrowing by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority up to the statutory limit of €127 million under section 30 of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority Act 1997 in response to a request from the chief executive officer of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority for permission to put a borrowing facility in place, without specifying the amount of borrowings proposed. [39397/10]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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Under Section 30 of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority Act 1997, as amended, the Authority may, with the sanction of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the consent of the Minister for Finance, borrow up to £100m (€127m) for the purpose of providing for current or capital purposes.

In October 2006, the Authority sought sanction for borrowings of up to €127 million for the purposes of property acquisition, and particularly in connection with the impending acquisition of the Irish Glass Bottle site for mixed residential and commercial development in furtherance of the objectives for the area set out in the Master Plan for the docklands.

Consent to this sanction request was sought by my Department from the Department of Finance and was subsequently received on the explicit basis that repayments would be wholly from the Authority's own resources and without recourse to the Exchequer. The Department wrote to the Authority on 24 October 2006, confirming this sanction.

Consent was also granted, in accordance with Section 6 of the Code of Practice for the Governance of State Bodies, to the Authority taking a shareholding in a special purpose company to facilitate the joint venture development of the IGB site.

As a commercial State body, it is in the first instance the responsibility of the Authority to manage its financial affairs within the relevant statutory parameters. Given its mandate to make independent commercial decisions, the purchase of individual properties and the extent to which the Authority would borrow for such purposes were matters for the Authority itself, subject to its overall borrowing limit not being exceeded.