Winter Blunderland credit card victims to get cash back from AIB

THOUSANDS of people who paid by credit card for the failed Winter Wonderland project will get their money back.

A spokesperson for AIB confirmed last night it would be writing to each of its customers who booked their tickets with an AIB credit card. Customers will be asked to fill out a form and their money will be refunded within days. AIB will also be writing to each of the other issuing banks telling them to send out these forms to their customers who will also be refunded.

The man behind the failed project, Adrian Smyth, faxed the racecourse on Monday saying he was forced to cancel the event because of circumstances beyond his control. It is estimated that almost 4,000 people had bought tickets for the event. It also emerged yesterday that no planning permission or special licence was sought by the promoters of Winter Wonderland, even though it would take up to 16 weeks to process such an application. While bosses at the racecourse did make inquiries about the need for a special licence for the event, no application was made by the promoters of the event.

Information officer with Kildare County Council, Charlie Talbot, said such an event required a licence under planning laws but no such licence was sought: “If a licence had been applied for, we would have been very glad to work through the process and enter into pre-application discussions with the organisers of the event.

“We would have helped them, advised them in any way. The general view by our people here was that it was a great idea and could be good fun and good for County Kildare. It would have been a case of winners all round and we would have wanted to support and facilitate it any way we could.”

Despite the collapse of the Winter Wonderland visitor attraction at the Curragh, many disappointed children who’ve battled to recover from heart surgery will enjoy a Christmas to remember after all. Coke are the official sponsors of Santa’s Kingdom, a totally unrelated visitor attraction at Punch

estown Racecourse. Last night, the drinks company promised to whisk a group from Heart Children Ireland to Santa’s Kingdom for a special day out.

The promoters of another attraction in Skibbereen in West Cork also want to treat a further group of 25 children to a day to remember. They’ve been in touch with the organisation and Liam Hodnett, chairman of Skibbereen Business Promotions, has promised to make this an extra special Christmas for the kids. The Skibbereen attraction, which is also called Winter Wonderland but has no connection with the cancelled event at the Curragh, attracted 15,000 last year.

The man behind Winter Wonderland was nowhere to be found yesterday. Gardaí confirmed that they had taken a number of statements from people who had paid for tickets.