The rush to build an aquatic centre resulted in a faulty building, an unsustainable business model, and also costly and still unresolved legal disputes, writes Investigations Correspondent Conor Ryan

Today the Public Accounts Committee will be looking into one of the most expensive corporate fiascoes in the history of Irish sport.

The National Aquatic Centre was planned in haste and will be repented as a financial drain for 20 years, writes Conor Ryan Investigative Correspondent

IT is hard to believe that anyone with any intelligence was surprised by the High Court ruling this week that the Donegal South-West by-election should be held without further delay. The existing delay, since the election of Pat ‘the Cope’ Gallagher to the European Parliament in June 2009, has been the longest in the history of the state.

THE Department of Sport has finally admitted defeat in a seven-year legal battle to claim €10.5 million worth of VAT from the former operators of the National Aquatic Centre.

THE cost of building the more than €70 million National Aquatic Centre was underestimated by €10m because the state agency responsible wrongly believed the Revenue Commissioners would return VAT payments.

TAXPAYERS have been landed with a multimillion euro legal bill after a state agency ignored the advice of the Attorney General and subsequently lost its Supreme Court case.

Vital information about the consortium awarded the contract to build the €63m National Aquatic centre which would have resulted in its exclusion from the tendering process was withheld from the Taoiseach and members of the Government, the High Court heard today.

SPORTS Minister John O’Donoghue has set January 1 next for the establishment of the National Sports Campus Development Authority.

CONTROVERSY surrounding the operation of the National Aquatic Centre continued yesterday as the High Court ruled that possession of the building be returned to State company Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Ltd (CSID).

PADDY TEAHON, the former executive chairman of the State company that owns the €62 million National Aquatic Centre (NAC), has denied before the High Court that he was under extreme pressure from Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to have matters regarding the centre sorted so it would be open in time for the Special Olympics of summer 2003.

AN agreement of April 30, 2003, appeared to contemplate all pool receipts from the €62 million National Aquatic Centre (NAC) were to be paid into an account in the sole name of Limerickman Pat Mulcair.

A CONSTRUCTION firm involved in the design and construction of the leaky €62 million National Aquatic Centre in Dublin was yesterday refused entry to the facility.

THE Government last night rejected a claim by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny that the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern misled the Dáil over the National Aquatic Centre.

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern reluctantly rowed into the National Aquatic Centre fiasco yesterday when he expressed deep dissatisfaction with Dublin Waterworld, the company contracted to run the facility.

THE owners and operators of the National Aquatic Centre (NAC) are locked in a dispute over who should pay for repairing problems at the centre, which has been leaking millions of litres of water over the past few months.

THE firm behind Dublin Waterworld Ltd sustained nearly €3 million in losses due to delays in repairing the storm-damaged National Aquatic Centre.

THE Government is expected to approve the revised €100m blueprint for the controversial Sports Campus Ireland at Abbotstown in north-west Dublin later this month.

The state agency responsible for developing a sports campus at Abbotstown is reportedly considering plans to construct Ireland’s biggest indoor arena at the west Dublin site.

A new high-tech office for sporting organisations was today opened in Dublin at a cost of €1m.

MOBILE phone operator Vodafone yesterday appointed former Eircom chief executive Alfie Kane to its board of directors.

The board of Campus and Stadium Ireland has announced Paddy Teahon's successors as chairman and chief executive of CSID.

Paddy Teahon has said he accepts the decision of the cabinet to remove him from office as CEO of Sports Campus Ireland and as chairman of its development wing, Campus Sports Ireland Development.

Fuller details of the Campus & Stadium Ireland Development services

A report in today’s Sunday Business Post has created more controversy over the government’s Campus Stadium Ireland development.