McDowell: No attempt to delay Quarryvale

THE Government trenchantly denied yesterday that it is trying to prevent the Mahon Tribunal from proceeding with the Quarryvale module prior to the election, amid renewed political attacks from opposition parties.

Tánaiste Michael McDowell last night stood over his €1 billion estimate despite the unprecedented public riposte from Tribunal chairman Judge Alan Mahon, who contended the final costs would not exceed €300 million.

Speaking at the opening night of the Progressive Democrats conference in Wexford, Mr McDowell totally rejected the contention that Wednesday’s intervention, on his part, was politically motivated or designed to prevent the tribunal completing the Quarryvale module, which may lead to political discomfort for the Taoiseach.

“As far as I am concerned, there has never been any intention on the part of the Government, the people wouldn’t tolerate it for a minute, if we tried opportunistically to collapse the scrum,” he said.

The defence came as Fine Gael environment spokesman Fergus O’Dowd challenged the Justice Minister to supply the gist of his claim that the tribunal would cost a billion.

He condemned what he claimed was the failure of Mr McDowell to explain the costing he had floated on Wednesday.

“Michael McDowell’s credibility is in shreds,” he asserted.

“We can only conclude that the attack on the work of the tribunal was designed to undermine its operation at a sensitive point.”

Earlier, FG leader Enda Kenny renewed his claim that the Government was terrified of what might emerge from the next module of the Mahon Tribunal and that was what motivated the intervention.

Separately, Labour environment spokesperson Eamon Gilmore called for the immediate release of all correspondence between the tribunal and the Department of the Environment since December, when negotiations began on a reduced tribunal legal fees structure from the end of March.

“The most logical explanation for the sudden series of attacks is to delay the opening of the long-awaited Quarryvale module on March 6,” claimed Mr Gilmore.

The Green Party’s Ciarán Cuffe said that Mr McDowell was stoking up controversy to divert attention away from the PDs’ current problems.

Mr McDowell yesterday appeared to backtrack on his claims, saying that it was not possible to estimate, with any degree of accuracy, what the final costs will be.

“Nobody can know for sure. We will not know until five years time,” he said.

“Judge Mahon may turn out to be right. I may turn out to be right.”

However, he stood over his own estimate, claiming, “In all of these circumstances, I believe the figure is going to be well above half a billion euro and going towards €1bn.”