€185m ‘poured down drain’ by docklands authority, PAC hears

Over €185m of taxpayers’ money was “poured down the drain” in property speculation by a quango, TDs have heard.

As the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee probed the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, the State’s financial watchdog, Comptroller and Auditor General Seamus McCarthy, strongly criticised the way the body did business.

Mr McCarthy said that the authority’s record-keeping in the past had been “ambiguous” and that he would have expected such records to be “clearer”.

“Record-keeping was not to the best standard at the authority,” Mr McCarthy told the meeting in relation to the purchase of the Glass Bottle site in Dublin, which resulted in a €52m loss for the State.

“The records kept by the authority in relation to the executive board’s decision on the matter are ambiguous at best,” Mr McCarthy told the influential committee.

Fine Gael TD Kieran O’Donnell chaired the committee meeting and accused the DDDA of a “complete abuse of taxpayers’ money” regarding a number of property deals it undertook as part of its regeneration remit during the boom.

Mr O’Donnell said the DDDA had been “playing with fire” and the State was left financially worse off as a result.

The purchase of a number of sites in the North Lotts area of the capital resulted in a loss of around €50m when they were later transferred to Nama, the committee heard.

Combined with a €35m loss on a shopping centre development — the CHQ — where two thirds of retail units remained empty, the Glass Bottle site, and other land projects, Mr O’Donnell said some €185m had been lost to the taxpayer.

Mr O’Donnell branded the situation an “absolute disgrace”, and noted that the taxpayers’ exposure on the Glass Bottle site had exploded from €9m to €61m in the space of 12 days.

He said the Glass Bottle scheme amounted to a “vanity project” for the DDDA, and expressed concern that no due diligence or independent valuations appeared to have been carried out on the matter.

Mr O’Donnell said €185m of taxpayers’ money had effectively been “poured down the drain” by the DDDA’s actions.

The Government decided to wind down the DDDA and transfer its responsibilities to Dublin City Council following a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General& in February 2012.

Now under the control of Nama, the Ringsend Glass Bottle site was sold to a consortium including the DDDA for an initial €412m (before stamp duty and other fees boosted the total to €431m), near the height of the boom in November 2006.

It was never redeveloped and the site was subsequently revalued at just €45m in 2010.