Aquatic Centre fiasco to be examined by Dáil committee

One of the most bitter, personalised and expensive corporate fiascoes in Irish sport will be picked apart in an Oireachtas hearing today.

The Dáil Public Accounts Committee will hear claims that the quango responsible for the National Aquatic Centre was told to withhold a devastatingly low valuation of the facility because it “did not suit” its purposes in a €10.2m legal battle.

Internal documents show it instead adopted a different and ultimately flawed accounting formula that suited its case better and produced an inflated estimate.

Seven-and-a-half years after the professional advice was given to Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Ltd (CSID), it lost a €10.2m Supreme Court case that hinged on the valuation of the centre.

The Supreme Court judgment said the €35m valuation it withheld had a “devastating” impact on its bid to pass the VAT onto the private operator of the pool, Dublin Waterworld Ltd (DWW).

CSID had needed the National Aquatic Centre to be worth over the €63m it cost to build in order to pass the VAT onto DWW.

In 2002, the State Valuation Office told CSID the lease on the centre was only worth €35m.

Despite this, CSID, later rebranded as National Sports Campus Development Authority, persisted with a legal argument based on the contention the contract was worth €75m.

It stuck with this legal challenge against the expressed advice of the Attorney General and the Comptroller & Auditor General in 2004.

An email seen by the Irish Examiner shows that, three months after the Valuation Office’s report, CSID’s advisers, PricewaterhouseCooper, suggested the €35m valuation would not be shared with DWW as it undermined its legal case.

The National Sports Campus Development Authority, the Valuation Office, the Revenue Commissioner and the Department of Sport will all appear before this morning’s meeting of the Public Accounts Committee to explain their involvement in the case.