Council asked to clarify €1m HQ deal

FOUR YEARS after paying €1.14 million for a building to develop into a headquarters, Clare County Council has now spent more than that on consultants, the headquarters still aren’t built and Travellers have occupied the site.

The cash-strapped council's executive were yesterday asked to explain the deal, described as the "the liability of the century".

In 1999, the council announced that it was to transform Our Lady's Psychiatric Hospital into its new HQ after paying €1.14m for the building and 30 acres of land on the outskirts of Ennis. The council has paid consultants and security firms €1.6m for work on the site, which remains empty apart from illegal encampments.

Members of the council have asked the executive to justify paying the money when they are still waiting for the council's new €32 million headquarters to be built.

Leader of the majority Fianna Fáil group in the council, Cllr PJ Kelly said yesterday: "I am utterly dismayed that substantially more money has been spent on consultants than on the cost of the building. It is like buying a cottage in the country for €100,000 and paying consultants €120,000 to tell you what to do with it."

"After five years, the council appears to have gone into reverse gear on this one and we seem if anything further away from establishing a new headquarters."

The council's existing HQ is becoming increasingly crowded with staff being accommodated in temporary cabins.

Cllr Joe Arkins (FG) said the council "bought the liability of the century It is a protected building and parts of it are falling asunder.

"I believe the council cannot go ahead with the plan in the absence of central Government funding."

Cllr Patricia McCarthy warned: "The project cannot become a bottomless pit, swallowing money with no end in sight."

Ms McCarthy said that the fees paid to the consultants represent an investment in the property as they helped secure planning permission for the HQ.

Defending the costs incurred in the project, a council spokesman said yesterday that the council securing planning for the HQ "obviously makes the property much more valuable.

"Submissions received from the expressions of interest process are currently being evaluated, though the Council is not in a position to give a time scale at this time," the spokesman said.