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THE FORMER CHAIRMAN of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority has claimed that the State lost tens of millions of euro on the sale of the Irish Glass Bottle Company site in Poolbeg because of the inaction of successive governments.
Lar Bradshaw said a legal loophole – which resulted in the Dublin Port Company getting little over a third of the proceeds from the sale of the site, for €412 million – had been identified by the Law Reform Commission in 1992.
That loophole meant the tenant of the site, under a freehold lease, was able to share in the proceeds of the purchase. As a result, the Dublin Port Company received only 33.6 per cent of the proceeds.
The purchase of the site for €412 million in early 2007 marked the most lucrative sale of any land during the Irish property boom. €291 million of the fee was borrowed, with those debts now taken over by NAMA which now has the power to sell the site if it so chooses.
Speaking at the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee this afternoon, Bradshaw said legal experts had advised the usual split of the proceeds would have been 50-50 – meaning the Dublin Port Company, which was State-owned, lost around €67.5 million in the proceeds.
Bradshaw, who served as chairman between 1997 and 2007, also denied that the taxpayer had lost money on the deal – saying his own authority, which was entirely state owned, put up 26 per cent of the sales price for the Glass Bottle site.
By comparison, the Dublin Port Company had taken 33.6 per cent of the proceeds – meaning one state body received more income than the other had spent.
In his opening statement, Bradshaw said he had been invited to act as chairman of the board by the then-finance and environment ministers Ruairí Quinn and Brendan Howlin.
He had been keen to take the position as he had grown up in Beaumont and his wife also had family links to the Docklands area.
He further stressed that he had been perfectly happy to accept the invitation to attend the committee – dismissing suggestions that he had been unwilling to attend, saying he had accepted the invitation to attend as soon as he had received one.
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Is that picture the face of Bad Santa or what..
WHAT ARE OUR politicians doing in the halls of Leinster House??
Depopulating the country of the undesirable people who don’t agree with them, so that come next election they will have a scared, obedient, docile, little electorate to vote them in again.
What ever Reilly!!!! You are a proven liar and who trusts a liar?
Only way we will get a decent health service is when Reilly&Co are told their private health insurance is invalid and that next time they or their families gets sick they are at the back of the queue…watch them sort it out, pronto.
All TDs and public servants should be made use public transport. Imagine the immediate efficiencies.
Ditto education.
And if you don’t like the conditions, emigrate like the rest of us. Take away their cushions.
Every time I see Chubacca’s hairy face I get this awful sinking feeling.
Given the track record to date and the utter complacency and contemptious way this sham of a government have and continue to treat the Irish prople I would not believe the Lords prayer from the mouths of any of them.
I have no confidence in them at all.
Now there’s a question, how many ministers/TD’s have private health insurance? Instead of putting their fate in the hands of public hospitals. Maybe the journal could investigate and report this? Although you will never get the answer.
if they didn’t waste so much money on being inefficient, they would be far better off! i mean, printing off letters to send to another person in the same department down the hall, waiting for 2-3 days for it to be delivered, then responded to then another letter and so on on
never heard of email no? what a complete waste of money, time and resources!
Minister Fintan Stack. :P
The lads in the pub don’t like him even when they are sober.
have your say