4,000 new jobs predicted for IFSC extension

The Dublin Docklands Development Authority has predicted that an additional 4,000 full-time jobs will be created over the next 12 months from a major extension of the International Financial Services Centre.

At a press briefing yesterday to mark publication of its annual report for 1998, the DDDA's chief executive, Mr Peter Coyne, said he was confident of a positive response from the European Commission on tax incentives for IFSC-related projects.

The latest extension to the IFSC involves an additional 650,000 square feet of office space, a 200-bedroom hotel, 200 new apartments, a creche and more retail facilities. By the end of 1998, 5,500 jobs were created by the 439 companies certified to trade under its banner.

The 12-acre site now being developed east of the Custom House Docks has also proved to be a major money-spinner for the DDDA. It made £49 million from the sale of land in the area and from the disposal of nine office buildings on the original site.

Mr Coyne refused to say how much was made from individual sales, saying this was "commercially sensitive information". He also declined to reveal what the DDDA had paid for other sites in the area, such as the former gasworks at the Grand Canal Docks.

Altogether, it spent £18.5 million on buying development assets, including Bord Gais Eireann's 20-acre site. Work on its decontamination after years of gas manufacturing is to start in October after a licence is issued by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Mr Lar Bradshaw, the DDDA's chairman, said he was pleased with the progress being made on redeveloping docklands. Targets for creating local employment were also being met, with more than 120 people, mostly long-term unemployed, working on construction sites.

The authority provided a grant of £1 million towards the development of a purpose-built community training workshop at Seville Place, in the Sherriff Street area. This is scheduled to open next month and would "greatly boost" local employment prospects.

Both Mr Bradshaw and Mr Coyne stressed that education was the key to breaking the unemployment cycle and said the DDDA had provided a 1.3 acre site within the IFSC extension for a Docklands campus by National College of Ireland (NCI).

NCI, which is headed by Prof Joyce O'Connor, would be offering a range of education programmes within the community to improve local skills. Mr Bradshaw said he was confident it would receive Government support.

Steps were also being taken to provide social or affordable housing in docklands to ensure that local people were not, in Mr Coyne's phrase, "driven out" by spiralling property prices. At least 20 per cent of the 200 apartments in the IFSC extension would be social housing.

Mr Coyne said that when the 12-acre site -for which the authority paid the Department of Education just over u £11 million - was fully developed, probably by the end of next year, there would be at least 10,000 people living, working or learning there.

This would help to move Dublin`s centre of gravity in the direction of docklands, where the DDDA aimed to create a "world-class city quarter".

Mr Coyne and Mr Bradshaw also referred to last August's visit to Dublin by the Tall Ships Race, saying it gave people a glimpse of the potential of the docklands. However, replacing the visual barrier of the Loop Line bridge was not a top priority.

On the high-rise scheme for Spencer Dock, which occupied much of the authority's time during 1998, the DDDA is anxious that the planning issues are resolved as soon as possible so that this pivotal site half-way between the IFSC and The Point can be developed.

Asked why there was no reference in the annual report to the authority's strong objections to the current plan for Spencer Dock, Mr Bradshaw said this was a matter of public record and it had been "absolutely open" about expressing its views.

On transportation, he said the extension of Luas to docklands, a rail link between Spencer Dock and Barrow Street and the completion of the port tunnel were all vital elements.

The DDDA also favours a full eastern bypass, to link the port tunnel with the city's southside.

Asked about the decaying early 19th century Stack A warehouse on the Custom House Docks site, Mr Bradshaw said its renovation had been held up while the Government considered Mr Dermot Desmond's proposal for a huge glazed "eco-sphere" in the middle of George's Dock.